"Have you not gone quite far enough?" he said.
Winston nodded. "I fancy I need ask no more, sir. You can scarcely buy the wheat, and the banks will advance nothing further on what you have to offer at Silverdale. It would be perilous to put yourself in the hands of a mortgage broker."
Barrington stood up very grim and straight, and there were not many men at Silverdale who would have met his gaze.
"Your content is a little too apparent, but I can still resent an impertinence," he said. "Are my affairs your business?"
"Sit down, sir," said Winston. "I fancy they are, and had it not been necessary, I would not have ventured so far. You have done much for Silverdale, and it has cost you a good deal, while it seems to me that every man here has a duty to the head of the settlement. I am, however, not going to urge that point, but have, as you know, a propensity for taking risks. I can't help it. It was probably born in me. Now, I will take that contract up for you."
Barrington gazed at him in bewildered astonishment.
But you would lose on it heavily. How could you overcome a difficulty that is too great for me?"
"Well," said Winston, with a little smile, "it seems I have some ability in dealing with these affairs."
Barrington did not answer for a while, and when he spoke it was slowly. "You have a wonderful capacity for making any one believe in you."
"That is not the point," said Winston. "If you will let me have the contract, or, and it comes to the same thing, buy the wheat it calls for, and if advisable sell as much again, exactly as I tell you, at my risk and expense, I shall get what I want out of it. My affairs are a trifle complicated and it would take some little time to make you understand how this would suit me. In the meanwhile you can give me a mere I O U for the difference between what you sold at, and the price today, to be paid without interest and whenever it suits you. It isn't very formal, but you will have to trust me."