“That's the only reason I can give,” said he.
“You are sure none of your people is supporting the stock?” I asked, as a form and not for information; for I thought I knew they weren't—I trusted him to have seen to that.
“I'd like to get my holdings back,” said he. “I can't buy until it's down. And I know none of my people would dare support it.”
You will notice he did not say directly that he was not himself supporting the market; he simply so answered me that I, not suspecting him, would think he reassured me. There is another of those mysteries of conscience. Had it been necessary, Langdon would have told me the lie flat and direct, would have told it without a tremor of the voice or a blink of the eye, would have lied to me as I have heard him, and almost all the big fellows, lie under oath before courts and legislative committees; yet, so long as it was possible, he would thus lie to me with lies that were not lies. As if negative lies are not falser and more cowardly than positive lies, because securer and more deceptive.
“Well, then, the price must break,” said I, “It won't be many days before the public begins to realize that there isn't anybody under Textile.”
“No sharp break!” he said carelessly. “No panic!”
“I'll see to that,” replied I, with not a shadow of a notion of the subtlety behind his warning.
“I hope it will break soon,” he then said, adding in his friendliest voice with what I now know was malignant treachery: “You owe it to me to bring it down.” That meant that he wished me to increase my already far too heavy and dangerous line of shorts.
Just then a voice—a woman's voice—came from the salon. “May I come in? Do I interrupt?” it said, and its tone struck me as having in it something of plaintive appeal.
“Excuse me a moment, Blacklock,” said he, rising with what was for him haste.