The travellers proceeded to the hotel, where rooms had been prepared
for them. There were flowers in Joan's room, which her maid said she
had rearranged, so awkwardly had they been placed in the vase. The
Wades, it appeared, were out, and had announced their intention of not
returning to lunch. They were, the hotel porter thought, to take that
meal at Mrs. Vansittart's.
"I think," said Lord Ferriby, "that I shall go down to the works."
"Yes, do," answered White, with an expressionless countenance.
"Perhaps you will accompany me?" suggested Joan's father.
"No--think not. Can't hit it off with Roden. Perhaps Joan would like to
see the Palace in the Wood."
Joan thought that it was her duty to go to the malgamite works, and
murmured the word "Nuxine," without, however, much enthusiasm; but
White happened to remember that it was mixing-day. So Lord Ferriby went
off alone in a hired carriage, as had been his intention from the
first; for White knew even less about the ethics of commerce than did
Cornish.
The account of affairs that awaited his lordship at the works was, no
doubt, satisfactory enough, for the manufacture of malgamite had been
proceeding at high pressure night and day. Von Holzen had, as he told
Marguerite, been poor all his life, and poverty is a hard task-master.
He was not going to be poor again. The grey carts had been passing up
and down Park Straat more often than ever, taking their loads to one or
other of the railway stations, and bringing, as they passed her house,
a gleam of anger to Mrs.
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