“If I lost the former,” he said, “I should very soon cease to be a person of interest, or of any account at all, amongst your friends.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“You do not strike one,” she remarked, “as the sort of person likely to lose a fortune on the race-course.”
“You are quite right,” he answered, “I think that I won money. A couple of thousand at least.”
“Two thousand pounds!” She actually sighed, and lost her appetite for the oyster patty with which she had been trifling. Trent looked around the table.
“At the same time,” he continued in a lower key, “I'll make a confession to you, Miss Wendermott, I wouldn't care to make to any one else here. I've been pretty lucky as you know, made money fast—piled it up in fact. To-day, for the first time, I have come face to face with the possibility of a reverse.”
“Is this a new character?” she murmured. “Are you becoming faint-hearted?”
“It is no ordinary reverse,” he said slowly. “It is collapse—everything!”
“O—oh!”
She looked at him attentively. Her own heart was beating. If he had not been engrossed by his care lest any one might over-hear their conversation, he would have been astonished at the change in her face.