"Yes, papers--newspapers. I've had every edition, and of course I've seen how Eries have fallen.
"Eries? Fallen? Oh!--of course!--I see!"
She was puzzled to perceive that he appeared positively relieved, as though he had supposed and feared that she had meant something altogether different. He took off his hat to wipe his brow, although the night was very far from being unduly warm. He began walking again, speaking now glibly enough, with a not unnatural bitterness.
"They have fallen, sure enough--just as surely as if, if I had gone a bear, they would have risen. As you were good enough to say last night, it was exactly the sort of thing which might have been expected."
"I am so sorry, Cyril."
"What's the use of being sorry?"
His tone was rough, almost rude. But she excused him still.
"Is it very bad?"
Then a wild idea came to him--one which, at the moment, seemed to him almost to amount to inspiration. In the disordered condition of his faculties--for, temporarily, they were disordered--he felt, no doubt erroneously enough, that in the girl's tone there was something besides sympathy, that there was contempt as well--contempt for him as for a luckless, helpless creature who was an utter and entire failure. And he suddenly resolved to drop at least a hint that, while she was despising him as so complete a failure, even now there was, actually within his grasp, wealth sufficient to satisfy the dreams of avarice.
"I don't know what you call very bad; as regards the Eries it is about as bad as it could be. But----"