CAI RENOUNCES.
If this thing had happened—?
After Fancy left him Cai dropped into his armchair, and sat for a long while staring at the paper ornament with which Mrs Bowldler had decorated his summer hearth. It consisted of a cascade of paper shavings with a frontage of paper roses and tinsel foliage, and was remarkable not only for its own sake but because Mrs Bowldler had chosen to display the roses upside down. But though Cai stared at it hard, he observed it not.
For some minutes his mind refused to work beyond the catastrophe.
"If it had happened—if 'Bias had indeed lost all his money. . . ."
He arose, lit a pipe, and dropped back into his chair.
It may be that the tobacco clarified his brain. . . . Of a sudden the child's words recurred and wrote themselves upon it, and stood out, as if traced in fire—"He went to master for your sake, because you was his friend and he had such a belief in you."
Ay, that was true, and in a flash it lit up a new pathway, down which he followed the thought in the child's mind only to lose it and stand aghast at his own reflections.
''Bias went to Rogers through his belief in me.'
—'I did not encourage him. On the other hand, I said nothing to hinder him.'
—'Yet, afterwards and in practice, I did encourage him, going to Rogers with him and discussing our investments together.'