"
"Well, think it over. Don't let your sentiments interfere too much with
business. I'll hold the stock for you for three days. If you're fool
enough to miss your opportunity after that I'm not responsible."
Naturally, this portion of the conversation Fenton did not impart to
his wife.
Edith's look became more perplexed as her talk with her husband
continued; and the matter-of-fact way in which he spoke of approaching
disaster was to her unintelligible.
"What is going to collapse?" she asked at length. "The stock?"
"Certainly, my dear. There isn't anything behind it. I doubt if there
ever was any Princeton Platinum mine, but I did think the men who were
managing it were clever enough to get it to four or four and a half
before they let go."
"But how could they get it to four or four and a half, if there isn't
any mine?"
"By gulling fools like me, my dear; that's the way these things are
always done."
A troubled look came over Mrs. Fenton's face, and her lips closed a
little more tightly.
"Well," demanded her husband impatiently, "what is it? Moral scruples?"
"It doesn't seem to me to be very honest stock to be dealing in," Edith
replied, timidly.
"To discuss the morality of stock speculation," he replied, with coolly
elaborate courtesy, "is much like eating a fig. You may be biting the
seeds all day without being sure you've finished them.
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