“If the Archangel Gabriel came in, they would still attend to their business,” he replied, in his thick, slow voice. “But he won’t. He is not one of my clients. Quite the contrary.”
Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence smoothed the fur that bordered her neat jacket and glanced sideways at her banker. Then she looked round the room. It was bare enough. A single picture hung on the wall—a portrait of an old lady. Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence raised her eyebrows, and continued her scrutiny. Here, again, was no iron safe. There were no ledgers, no diaries, no note-books, no paraphernalia of business. Nothing but a bare table and John Turner seated at it, in a much more comfortable chair than that provided for the client, staring apathetically at a date-case which stood on a bare mantelpiece.
The lady’s eyes returned to the portrait on the wall.
“You used to have a portrait of Louis Philippe there,” she said.
“When Louis Philippe was on the throne,” admitted the banker.
“And now?” inquired this daughter of Eve, looking at the portrait.
“My maternal aunt,” replied Turner, making a gesture with two fingers, as if introducing his client to the portrait.
“You keep her, one may suppose, as a stop-gap—between the dynasties. It is so safe—a maternal aunt!”
“One cannot hang a republic on the wall, however much one may want to.”
“Then you are a Royalist?” inquired Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence.