"If it be worth anything."
"If opinions are going----" Betty had opened the door behind the banker"s chair, and was standing on the threshold--"wouldn"t you like to have mine, father?"
"To be sure," Arthur said. "Why not, indeed? Let us have it. Why not have everybody"s? And send for the cook, sir, and the two clerks--to advise us?"
Betty dropped a curtsy. "Thank you, I am flattered."
"Betty, you"ve no business here," her father said. "You mustn"t stop unless you can keep your opinions to yourself."
"But what has happened?" she asked, looking around in wonder.
"Mr. Griffin has withdrawn his account."
"And Rodd," Arthur added, with more heat than the occasion seemed to demand, "thinks that we had better put up the shutters!"
"No, no," the banker said. "We must do him justice. He thinks that we are going a little too far, that"s all. And that the loss of Mr.
Griffin"s account is a danger signal. That"s what you mean, man, isn"t it?"
Rodd nodded, his face stubborn. He stood alone, divided from the other three by the table, for Arthur had pa.s.sed round it and placed himself at Ovington"s elbow.
"His view," the banker continued, polishing his gla.s.ses with his handkerchief and looking thoughtfully at them, "is that if there came a check in trade and a fall in values, the bank might find its resources strained--I"ll put it that way."
Arthur sneered. "Singular wisdom! But a fall--a general fall at any rate--what sign is there of it?" He was provoked by the banker"s way of taking it. Ovington seemed to be attaching absurd weight to Rodd"s suggestion. "None!" contemptuously. "Not a jot."
"There"s been a universal rise," Rodd muttered.
"In a moment? Without warning?"
"No, but----"
"But fiddlesticks!" Arthur retorted. Of late it seemed as if his good humor had deserted him, and this was not the first sign he had given of an uncertain temper. Still, the phase was so new that two of those present looked curiously at him, and his consciousness of this added to his irritation. "Rodd"s no better than an old woman," he continued.
"Five per cent. and a mortgage in a strong box is about his measure.
If you are going to listen to every croaker who is frightened by a shadow, you may as well close the bank, sir, and put the money out on Rodd"s terms!"
"Still Rodd means us well," the banker said thoughtfully, "and a little caution is never out of place in a bank. What I want to get from him is--has he anything definite to tell us? Wolley? Have you heard anything about Wolley, Rodd?"
"No, sir."
"Then what is it? What is it, man?"
But Rodd, brought to bay, only looked more stubborn. "It"s no more than I"ve told you, sir," he muttered, "it"s just a feeling. Things must come down some day."
"Oh, d.a.m.n!" Arthur exclaimed, out of patience, and thinking that the banker was making altogether too much of it--and of Rodd. "If he were a weather-gla.s.s----"
"Or a woman!" interjected Betty, who was observing all with bright inscrutable eyes.
"But as he isn"t either," Arthur continued impatiently, "I fail to see why you make so much of it! Of course, things will come down some day, but if he thinks that with your experience you are blind to anything he is likely to see, he"s no better than a fool! Because my uncle, for reasons which you understand, sir, has drawn out four hundred pounds, he thinks every customer is going to leave us, and Ovington"s must put up the shutters! The truth is, he knows nothing about it, and if he wishes to damage the bank he is going the right way to do it!"
"Would you like my opinion, father?" Betty asked.
"No," sharply, "certainly not, child. Where"s Clement?"
"Well, I"m afraid he"s away."
"Again? Then he is behaving very badly!"
"That was the opinion I was going to give," the girl answered. "That some were behaving better than others."
"If," Arthur cried, "you mean me----"
"There, enough," said her father. "Be silent, Betty. You"ve no business to be here."
"Still, people should behave themselves," she replied, her eyes sparkling.
Arthur had his answer ready, but Ovington forestalled him. "Very good, Rodd," he said. "A word on the side of caution is never out of place in a bank. But I am not blind, and all that you have told me is in my mind. Thank you. You can go now."
It was a dismissal, and Rodd took it as such, and felt, as he had never felt before, his subordinate position. Why he did so, and why, as he withdrew under Arthur"s eye, he resented the situation, he best knew. But it is possible that two of the others had some inkling of the cause.
When he had gone, "There"s an old woman for you!" Arthur exclaimed. "I wonder that you had the patience to listen to him, sir."
But Ovington shook his head. "I listened because there are times when a straw shows which way the wind blows."
"But you don"t think that there is anything in what he said?"
"I shall remember what he said. The time may be coming to take in sail--to keep a good look-out, lad, and be careful. You have been with us--how long? Two years. Ay, but years of expansion, of rising prices, of growing trade. But I have seen other times--other times." He shook his head.
"Still, there is no sign of a change, sir?"
"You"ve seen one to-day. What is in Rodd"s head may be in others, and what is in men"s heads soon reflects itself in their conduct."
It was the first word, the first hint, the first presage of evil; of a fall, of bad weather, of a storm, distant as yet, and seen even by the clearest eyes only as a cloud no bigger than a man"s hand. But the word had been spoken. The hint had been given. And to Arthur, who had paid a high price for prosperity--how high only he could say--the presage seemed an outrage. The idea that the prosperity he had bought was not a certainty, that the craft on which he had embarked his fortune was, like other ships, at the mercy of storm and tempest, that like other ships it might founder with all its freight, was entirely new to him. So new that for a moment his face betrayed the impression it made. Then he told himself that the thing was incredible, that he started at shadows, and his natural confidence rebounded. "Oh, d.a.m.n Rodd!" he cried--and he said it with all his heart. "He"s a croaker by nature!"
"Still, we won"t d.a.m.n him," the banker answered mildly. "On the contrary, we will profit by his warning. But go now. I have a letter to write. And do you go, too, Betty, and make tea for us."
He turned to his papers, and Arthur, after a moment"s hesitation, followed Betty into the house. Overtaking her in the hall, "Betty, what is the matter?" he asked. And when the girl took no notice, but went on with her chin in the air as if he had not spoken, he seized her arm. "Come," he said, "I am not going to have this. What is it?"
"What should it be! I don"t know what you mean," she retorted.
"Oh yes, you do. What took you--to back up that a.s.s in the bank just now?"
Then Betty astonished him. "I didn"t think he wanted any backing," she said, her eyes bright. "He seemed to me to talk sense, and someone else nonsense."
"But you"re not----"
"A partner in Ovington"s? No, Mr. Bourdillon, I am not--thank heaven!
And so my head is not turned, and I can keep my temper and mind my manners."
"Oh, it"s Mr. Bourdillon now, is it?"