"Well, that rather depends," Laverick answered. "We certainly had a terribly anxious time yesterday. Our business has been most unfortunate--"
"Yes, yes!" the girl interrupted. "Please go on. There have been business troubles, then."
"Rather," Laverick continued. "Last night they reached such a pitch that I gave Morrison some money and it was agreed that he should leave the firm and try his luck somewhere else. I quite understood that he was going abroad."
The girl seemed, for some reason, relieved.
"There was something, then," she said, half to herself. "There was something. Oh, I am glad of that! You were angry with him, perhaps, Mr. Laverick?"
Laverick stood with his back to the little fireplace and with his hands behind him--a commanding figure in the tiny room full of feminine trifles. He looked a great deal more at his ease than he really was.
"Perhaps I was inclined to be short-tempered," he admitted. "You see, to be frank with you, the department of our business that was going wrong was the one over which Morrison has had sole control.
He had entered into certain speculations which I considered unjustifiable. To-day, however, matters took an unexpected turn for the better."
Almost as he spoke his face clouded. Morrison, of course, would be triumphant. Perhaps he would even expect to be reinstated. For many reasons, this was a thing which Laverick did not desire.
"Now tell me," he continued, "what is the matter with Morrison, and why has he sent for me, and, if you will pardon my saying so, why is he here instead of in his own rooms?"
"I will explain," she began softly.
"You will please explain sitting down," he said firmly. "And don"t look so terrified," he added, with a little laugh. "I can a.s.sure you that I am not going to eat you, or anything of that sort. You make me feel quite uncomfortable."
She smiled for the first time, and Laverick thought that he had never seen anything so wonderful as the change in her features. The strained rigidity pa.s.sed away. An altogether softer light gleamed in her wonderful eyes. She was certainly by far the prettiest child he had ever seen. As yet he could not take her altogether seriously.
"Thank you," she said, sinking down upon the arm of an easy-chair.
"first of all, then, Arthur is here because he is my brother."
"Your brother!" Laverick repeated wonderingly.
Somehow or other, he had never a.s.sociated Morrison with relations.
Besides, this meant that she must be of his race. There was nothing in her face to denote it except the darkness of her eyes, and that nameless charm of manner, a sort of ultra-sensitiveness, which belongs sometimes to the highest type of Jews. It was not a quality, Laverick thought, which he should have a.s.sociated with Morrison"s sister.
"My brother, in a way," she resumed. "Arthur"s father was a widower and my mother was a widow when they were married. You are surprised?"
"There is no reason why I should be," he answered, curiously relieved at her last statement. "Your brother and I have been connected in business for some years. We have seen very little of one another outside."
"I dare say," she continued, still timidly, "that Arthur"s friends would not be your friends, and that he wouldn"t care for the same sort of things. You see, my mother is dead and also his father, and as we aren"t really related at all, I cannot expect that he would come to see me very often. Last night, though, quite late--long after I had gone to bed--he rang the bell here. I was frightened, for just now I am all alone, and my servant only comes in the morning. So I looked out of the window and I saw him on the pavement, huddled up against the door. I hurried down and let him in. Mr. Laverick," she went on, with an appealing glance at him, "I have never seen any one look like it. He was terrified to death.
Something seemed to have happened which had taken away from him even the power of speech. He pushed past me into this room, threw himself into that chair," she added, pointing across the room, "and he sobbed and beat his hands upon his knees as though he were a woman in a fit of hysterics. His clothes were all untidy, he was as pale as death, and his eyes looked as though they were ready to start out of his head."
"You must indeed have been frightened," Laverick said softly.
"Frightened! I shall never forget it! I did not sleep all night.
He would tell me nothing--he has scarcely spoken a sensible word.
Early this morning I persuaded him to go upstairs, and made him lie down. He has taken two draughts which I bought from the chemist, but he has not slept. Every now and then he tries to get up, but in a minute or two he throws himself down on the bed again and hides his face. If any one rings at the bell, he shrieks. If he hears a footfall in the street, even, he calls out for me. Mr. Laverick, I have never been so frightened in my life. I didn"t know whom to send for or what to do. When he wrote that note to you I was so relieved. You can"t imagine how glad I am to think you have come!"
Laverick"s eyes were full of sympathy. One could see that the scene of last night had risen up again before her eyes. She was shrinking back, and the terror was upon her once more. He moved over to her side, and with an impulse which, when he thought of it afterwards, amazed him, laid his hand gently upon her shoulder.
"Don"t worry yourself thinking about it," he said. "I will talk to your brother. We did have words, I"ll admit, last night, but there wasn"t the slightest reason why it should have upset him in this way. Things in the city were shocking yesterday, but they have improved a great deal to-day. Let me go upstairs and I"ll try and pump some courage into him."
"You are so kind," she murmured, suddenly dropping her hands from before her face and looking up at him with shining eyes, "so very kind. Will you come, then?"
She rose and he followed her out of the room, up the stairs, and into a tiny bedroom. Laverick had no time to look around, but it seemed to him, notwithstanding the cheap white furniture and very ordinary appointments, that the same note of dainty femininity pervaded this little apartment as the one below.
"It is my room," she said shyly. "There is no other properly furnished, and I thought that he might sleep upon the bed."
"Perhaps he is asleep now," Laverick whispered.
Even as he spoke, the dark figure stretched upon the sheets sprang into a sitting posture. Laverick was conscious of a distinct shock.
It was Morrison, still wearing the clothes in which he had left the office, his collar crushed out of all shape, his tie vanished. His black hair, usually so shiny and perfectly arranged, was all disordered. Out of his staring eyes flashed an expression which one sees seldom in life,--an expression of real and mortal terror.
"Who is it?" he cried out, and even his voice was unrecognizable.
"Who is that? What do you want?"
"It is I--Laverick," Laverick answered. "What on earth is the matter with you, man?"
Morrison drew a quick breath. Some part of the terror seemed to leave his face, but he was still an alarming-looking object.
Laverick quietly opened the door and laid his hand upon the girl"s shoulder.
"Will you leave us alone?" he asked. "I will come and talk to you afterwards, if I may."
She nodded understandingly, and pa.s.sed out. Laverick closed the door and came up to the bedside.
"What in the name of thunder has come over you, Morrison?" he said.
"Are you ill, or what is it?"
Morrison opened his lips--opened them twice--without any sort of sound issuing.
"This is absurd!" Laverick exclaimed protestingly. "I have been feeling worried myself, but there"s nothing so terrifying in losing one"s money, after all. As a matter of fact, things are altogether better in the city to-day. You made a big mistake in taking us out of our depth, but we are going to pull through, after all. "Unions"
have been going up all day."
Laverick"s presence, and the sound of his even, matter-of-fact tone, seemed to act like a tonic upon his late partner. He made no reference, however, to Laverick"s words.
"You got my note?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely.
"Naturally I got it," Laverick answered impatiently, "and I came at once. Try and pull yourself together. Sit up and tell me what you are doing here, frightening your sister out of her life."
Morrison groaned.
"I came here," he muttered, "because I dared not go to my own rooms.
I was afraid!"
Laverick struggled with the contempt he felt.
"Man alive," he exclaimed, "what was there to be afraid of?"
"You don"t know!" Morrison faltered. "You don"t know!"
Then, for the first time, it occurred to Laverick that perhaps the financial crisis in their affairs was not the only thing which had reduced his late partner to this hopeless state. He looked at him narrowly.