"I have not seen you for a long time," he said, pointing to a chair and sinking back into his own. "No," Pateley replied. "I was very sorry to hear that you had been ill. You are looking rather bad still." "And feeling so," Sir William said wearily. "The worst of influenza is that one feels just as bad when one is supposed to be getting better as when one is supposed to be getting worse. It is a most annoying form of complaint." "So I have understood," said Pateley, "though I have not learnt it by personal experience." "No, you don't look as though you suffered from weakness," said Sir William, with a faint smile and a consciousness that this was not a person from whom it would be very easy to extract sympathy for his own condition. Pateley paused. He felt curiously uncomfortable and hesitating, a sensation somewhat novel to him. Sir William leant back in his chair, trying to control the trembling of his hands, of which one held the _Mayfair Gazette_, the smaller paper still concealed underneath it. "I see," Pateley said, "you are reading the evening paper. Not very good reading, is it? Things look pretty bad." "They do indeed," said Sir William. "It looks uncommonly like war with Germany," Pateley said; "prices are tumbling down headlong on the Stock Exchange. I believe there is going to be something very like a panic." "Is there?" said Gore uneasily; "that's bad." "Yes, it is very bad," Pateley went on. "I suppose you have heard that there are ugly rumours about the 'Equator.'" "I saw something," Sir William said, forcing himself to speak. "What is it exactly that they say?" "Well, the last thing they say," Pateley replied with a harder ring in his voice, "is that it is not a gold mine at all." "What?" said Sir William, grasping the arms of his chair. "And that the whole thing, therefore, is going to pieces with every penny invested in it." "Is it--is it as bad as that?" said the other, tremulously. "No, no, it can't be. Surely it can't be." "Do you mean to say you don't know?" said Pateley. "I know nothing," said Sir William. "I have heard nothing about it, up to this moment." "One can't help wondering," said Pateley, "that a man in your responsible position towards it," the words struck Sir William like a blow, "should not have known, should not have inquired----" "I have been ill, you know," Sir William said nervously, "I have not been able to look into or understand anything. I have not been out of the house yet. I could not go to the City or do any business." "Yes, I see that," said Pateley, "and I am sorry to be obliged to thrust a business discussion upon you now----" Sir William looked up at him quickly, anxiously. "But the fact is, at this moment the business won't wait. If you remember, when the 'Equator' Company was first started, I, like many others, invested in it, having asked your opinion of it first, and having heard from you that you were going to be the Chairman of the Board of Directors."