Three days later he personally saw Tavender off at Waterloo station by the steamer-train, en route for Southampton and New York. The old man was in childlike good spirits, looking more ecclesiastical than ever in the new clothes he had been enabled to buy. He visibly purred with content whenever his dim eyes caught sight of the new valise and steamer trunk, which belonged to him, on the busy platform.
“You've been very kind to me, Thorpe,” he said more than once, as they stood together beside the open door of the compartment. “I was never so hospitably treated before in my life. Your attention to me has been wonderful. I call you a true friend.”
“Oh, that's all right! Glad to do it,” replied the other, lightly. In truth he had not let Tavender stray once out of his sight during those three days. He had dragged him tirelessly about London, showing him the sights from South Kensington Museum to the Tower, shopping with him, resting in old taverns with him, breakfasting, lunching, aud dining with him--in the indefatigable resolution that he should strike up no dangerous gossiping acquaintance with strangers. The task had been tiresome in the extreme--but it had been very well worth while.
“One thing I'm rather sorry about,” Tavender remarked, in apologetic parenthesis--“I ought to have gone down and seen that brother-in-law of mine in Kent. He's been very good to me, and I'm not treating him very well. I wrote to tell him I was coming--but since then I haven't had a minute to myself. However, I can write to him and explain how it happened. And probably I'll be over again sometime.”
“Why, of course,” said Thorpe, absently. The allusion to the brother-in-law in Kent had escaped his notice, so intent was he upon a new congeries of projects taking vague shape in his mind.
“Think of yourself as my man out there,” he said now, slowly, following the clue of his thoughts. “There may be big things to do. Write to me as often as you can. Tell me everything that's going on. Money will be no object to me--you can have as much as you like--if things turn up out there that are worth taking up. But mind you say nothing about me--or any connection you've ever had with me. You'll get a letter from the Secretary of a Company and the Chairman asking for a report on a certain property, and naming a fee. You simply make a good report--on its merits. You say nothing about anything else--about me, or the history of the concession, or its validity, or anything. I mustn't be alluded to in any way. You quite understand that?”