“This is all terribly important to me,” the nobleman said, breaking the unpleasant silence. His voice was surcharged with earnestness. “Apparently you are annoyed with something--what it may be I can't for the life of me make out. All I can say is”--and he broke off with a helpless gesture which seemed to imply that he feared to say anything. Thorpe put out his lips. “I don't know what you mean,” he said, brusquely. “What I mean”--the other echoed, with bewildered vagueness of glance. “I'm all at sea. I don't in the least grasp the meaning of anything. You yourself volunteered the declaration that you would do great things for me. 'We are rich men together'--those were your own words. I urged you at the time to go slowly--to consider carefully whether you weren't being too generous. I myself said to you that you were ridiculously exaggerating what you called your obligation to me. It was you who insisted upon presenting me with 100,000 shares.” “Well, they are here ready for you,” said Thorpe, with calculated coldness. “You can have them whenever you please. I promised them to you, and set them aside for you. You can take them away with you now, if you like. What are you kicking up this fuss for, then? Upon my word!--you come here and suggest to me that I made promises to you which I've broken!” Plowden looked hard at him, as he turned over in his mind the purport of these words. “I see what you are doing,” he said then. “You turn over to me 100,000 vendor's deferred shares. Thanks! I have already 1,000 of them. I keep them in the same box with my father's Confederate bonds.” “What the hell do you mean?” Thorpe broke in with explosive warmth, lifting himself in his chair. “Oh, come now, Thorpe,” Plowden retorted, “let's get this talk on an intelligent, common-sense footing.” He had regained something of his self-control, and keenly put forward now to help him all his persuasive graces of eye and speech. He seated himself once more. “I'm convinced that you want to be good to me. Of course you do! If I've seemed here for a minute or two to think otherwise, it was because I misunderstood things. Don't let there be any further misunderstandings! I apologize for doing you the momentary injustice of suspecting that you were going to play off the vendor's shares on me. Of course you said it--but it was a joke.” “There seems to be a joke somewhere, sure enough,” said Thorpe, in dryly metallic tones--“but it isn't me who's the joker. I told you you should have 100,000 of my 400,000 shares, didn't I? I told you that in so many words. Very well, what more do you want? Here they are for you! I keep my promise to the letter. But you--you seem to think you're entitled to make a row. What do you mean by it?”