“You will sell the securities, and have it all ready by ten o’clock to-morrow morning,” she repeated, with a feminine insistence.
“You shall have the money to-morrow morning, whether I succeed in selling for cash or not,” was the reply, and John Turner concealed a yawn with imperfect success.
“A loan?”
“No banker lends—except to kings,” replied Turner, stolidly. “Call it an accommodation.”
Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence glanced at him sharply over the fur collar which she was clasping round her neck. Here was a banker, reputed wealthy, who sat in a bare room, without so much as a fireproof safe to suggest riches; a business man of world-wide affairs, who drummed indolent fingers on a bare table; a philosopher with a maxim ever ready to teach, as all maxims do, cowardice in the guise of prudence, selfishness masquerading as worldly wisdom, hard-heartedness passing for foresight. Here was one who seemed to see, and was yet too sleepy to perceive. Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence was not always sure of her banker, but now, as ever before, one glance at his round, heavy face reassured her. She laughed and went away, well satisfied with the knowledge, only given to women, of having once more carried out her object with the completeness which is known as twisting round the little finger.
She nodded to Turner, who had ponderously risen from the chair which was more comfortable than the client’s seat, and held the door open for her to pass. He glanced at the clock as he did so. And she knew that he was thinking that it was nearly the luncheon hour, so transparent to the feminine perception are the thoughts of men.
When he had closed the door he returned to his writing-table. Like many stout people, he moved noiselessly, and quickly enough when the occasion demanded haste.
He wrote three letters in a very few minutes, and, when they were addressed, he tapped on the table with the end of his pen-holder, which brought, in the twinkling of an eye, that clerk whose business it was to abandon his books when called.
“I shall not go out to luncheon until I have the written receipt for each one of those letters,” said the banker, knowing that until he went out to luncheon his six clerks must needs go hungry. “Not an answer,” he explained, “but a receipt in the addressee’s writing.”
And while the clerk hurried from the room and down the stone stairs at a break-neck speed, Turner sank back into his chair, with lustreless eyes fixed on space.