Her husband looked at her severely, and breathed a hasty ‘Hush!’ Then after a little pause,
‘Perhaps we’re prejudiced. We have had to do with some that have done badly in business, and we don’t take a sanguine view. You may make money, I don’t deny, but again you may lose it. You may have to part with every penny you’ve got, and there’s a deal of temptation to speculate and all that. And besides we’ve got no opening that I know,’ he added, almost sharply, ‘which alters the question.’
There had been no argument nor anything to excite him, and yet he ended up in a belligerent manner, as though he had been violently contesting the views of some antagonist, and then looked at Mr. Cattley with a sort of defiance, as if that mild and innocent clergyman had been pressing upon him some undesirable course.
‘Nay, nay, if you don’t like it,’ said the curate, ‘there is nothing more to be said. I am not much moved that way myself. I had a brother once——’
‘Yes?’ cried Mrs. Sandford, putting away her knitting altogether, as if in the importance of this discussion the mere touch of the work irritated her. The old gentleman lifted a finger as if in warning.
‘Don’t you excite yourself, my dear,’ he said.
‘Poor fellow,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘He was much older than I: but he died young, broken-hearted. He was not the resolute sort of fellow that gets on. He got his accounts into a muddle somehow——’
‘Yes!’ cried Mrs. Sandford again. She was as eager as if this were something pleasant that was being told her; whereas the curate had his eyes fixed, meditatively, on the fire, and spoke slowly and with regret.
‘He was not much more than a boy,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘It’s a long time ago, when I was a child. I believe it never could be found out how it was—whether he had lost the money or spent it without knowing, or whether some one had taken it. Nobody blamed him, but he never got over it. It broke his heart.’
‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Sandford, with a gasp for breath. But she seemed a little disappointed—as if she were sorry—though that of course must have been impossible—that the curate’s brother was not to blame.