"Are your relations with Welles such, or could they be cultivated so, as to make him invite you--not me--you!--to dine at his house?"
"Look here, Mr. Jerningham," and young Mr. Wolfe's face flushed, "a fellow doesn't do some things for money; and this is one--"
"I know it! Not for money. For friendship, yes! That's why--you understand now, don't you?" He looked so earnestly at young Wolfe that Frank absolved him of wrong-doing.
"Did you ever know Randolph Deering, who used to be president of the VanTwiller Trust Company?"
"I don't recall speaking to him more than to say 'How do you do?' I don't remember when or how I met him."
"Do you know Mrs. Deering, Mrs. Welles's mother?"
"Anybody who would give you a letter of introduction?"
"I don't know. If my aunt or my sisters know her it would be easy. But, of course, I should have to know first why I should want to meet her."
"Of course. Did you ever hear anything about Mrs. Welles's sister, Naida Deering?"
Francis Wolfe thought a long time. His mind did not work very quickly at any time. At length he said: "I don't think there could have been a sister, for I never heard of her having any; indeed, I distinctly remember hearing that she was an only child. Maybe she was a cousin or--er--something of the sort."
"No; Naida was a sister; a good deal older and--But we are drifting away from business. Will you accept my proposition to be my--er--adviser in certain matters on which I think you are qualified to give advice, and accept twenty-five thousand dollars a year?"
"Are you offering me this--er--salary when, of course, I know I am not worth a da--a cent in business; I mean, isn't it really in exchange for what I may be able to do for you in a--a social way? You know what I mean."
"No, sir!" said Jerningham, decisively. "Not for an instant! I do not, dear Mr. Wolfe, give an infinitesimal damn for what is called society."
"But I thought Jimmy Parkhurst told me--"
"I cannot help what Jimmy Parkhurst told you; but I tell you that I like interesting people, and I don't care who or what they are socially. I hate bores--whether they are hod-carriers or dukes. If I can meet people who will instruct me when I want to learn, or amuse me when I want to laugh, I'm satisfied. And I can always meet that kind without anybody's help. You know how it is." Then he spoke perhaps thirty words in a foreign language that Frank thought must be Hungarian. "You remember your Latin, of course. That's from Petronius."