“What should I be talking about if not the bowling for Saturday?” cried Cyril.
“Oh, the bowling. What bowling? Saturday—what is to happen on Saturday?” said the cashier.
“You idiot! Haven't we been discussing”—
“Oh, go away—go away,” said Mr. Calmour wearily. “Heaven only knows what may happen between to-day and Saturday. If you could have any idea of what I've gone through to-day already—bless my soul! it all seems like a queer dream. Where are all the people gone? Why have they gone, can you tell me? I haven't paid away all my gold yet. I've still over two thousand pounds left. Have they closed the doors of the bank? They were fools—oh, such fools! But I could have held out. I had three or four tricks left. And now what's to become of me? I support my mother—she's an old woman; and I have a sister in another town—she is an epileptic. We are all ruined with the bank.”
The cashier put his hands up to his face and burst into tears. The strain of the previous hour had been too much for him. It was in vain that Cyril Mowbray slapped him on the back and assured him that the bank was safe and that his mother and sister might reasonably look forward to a brilliant future. It was in vain that Mr. Westwood shook him by the hand, promising never to forget the way in which he had worked through the crisis. Mr. Calmour refused to be comforted. He continued weeping, and had to be conveyed to his home in a fly.
Richard Westwood had begged Cyril to drive to Westwood Court and dine with him; and now the banker was sitting in his bedroom, staring into the empty grate as he recalled the incidents of the terrible day through which he had passed.
The boom of the gong which came half an hour later aroused him from his reverie. He started up with a great sigh, and was surprised to find himself as weary as if he had had a twenty-mile ride. He went to a looking-glass and examined his face narrowly. It looked haggard. He remembered having heard of men's hair becoming grey in a single night. He quite believed such stories. He thought it strange that his hair should remain black. He was thirty-six years of age—four years older than Agnes, and he had noticed that she had many grey hairs—she had talked of them when they had stood face to face in the bank.
He wondered if waiting for an absent lover was more trying than being the senior partner in a bank during a severe financial crisis.
He went downstairs to dinner without coming to any satisfactory conclusion on this rather difficult question.