"It doesn't matter, really. Except for the child."
Sylvia said:
"I guaranteed an overdraft for you up to a thousand pounds last Thursday. You can't be overdrawn over a thousand pounds."
"I'm not overdrawn at all," Tietjens said. "I was for about fifteen pounds yesterday. I didn't know it."
Port Scatho was turning over the pages of the pass-book, his face completely blank.
"I simply don't understand," he said. "You appear to be in credit. . . . You appear always to have been in credit except for a small sum now and then. For a day or two."
"I was overdrawn," Tietjens said, "for fifteen pounds yesterday. I should say for three or four hours: the course of a post, from my army agent to your head office. During these two or three hours your bank selected two out of six of my cheques to dishonour—both being under two pounds. The other one was sent back to my mess at Ealing, who won't, of course, give it back to me. That also is marked "account overdrawn," and in the same handwriting."
"But good God," the banker said. "That means your ruin."
"It certainly means my ruin," Tietjens said. "It was meant to."
"But," the banker said—a look of relief came into his face which had begun to assume the aspect of a broken man's—"you must have other accounts with the bank . . . a speculative one, perhaps, on which you are heavily down. . . . I don't myself attend to client's accounts, except the very huge ones, which affect the bank's policy."