“Is there nothing I can do?” pleaded the ruined man, instinctively beholding the last plank slipping from beneath his feet.
“Don’t give in yet,” said Merton kindly. “Get one of these newly-started Mortgage and Agency Companies to take up your account. They have been organised chiefly, I am informed, with a view to get a share of the pastoral loan business, which is now assuming such gigantic proportions. They are enabled to make easier terms than we can afford to do; though, after all, this station pawn business is not legitimate banking. If you have any friend who would join in the security it would, perhaps, smooth the way.”
“I will try,” said Stamford, a ray of hope, slender but still definite, illumining the darkness of his soul. “There may be a chance, and I thank you, Mr. Merton, for the suggestion, and your wish to aid me. Good morning!” He took his hat and passed through the waiting-room, somewhat sternly regarded by the capitalist, who promptly arose as the inner door opened. But Harold Stamford heeded him not, and threading the thronged atrium, re-entered once more the city pageant, novel and attractive to him in spite of his misery. To-day he mechanically took the seaward direction, walking far and fast until he found himself among the smaller shops and unmistakable “waterside characters” of Lower George Street. Here he remembered that there were stone stairs at which, in his boyhood’s days, he had so often watched the boats return or depart on their tiny voyages. A low stone wall defended the street on that side, while permitting a view of the buildings and operations of a wharf. Beyond lay the harbour alive with sail and steam. In his face blew freshly the salt odours of the deep, the murmuring voice of the sea wave was in his ears, the magic of the ocean stole once more into his being.
In his youth he had delighted in boating, and many a day of careless, unclouded joy could he recall, passed amid the very scenes and sounds that now lay around him. Long, happy days spent in fishing when the fair wind carried the boy sailors far away through the outer bays or even through the grand portals where the sandstone pillars have borne the fret of the South Pacific deep for uncounted centuries. The long beat back against the wind, the joyous return, the pleasant evening, the dreamless slumber. He remembered it all. What a heaven of bliss, had he but known it; and what an inferno of debt, ruin, and despair seemed yawning before him now!
He leaned over the old stone wall and watched mechanically the shadow of a passing squall deepen the colour of the blue waters of the bay. After a while, his spirits rose insensibly. He even took comfort from the fact that after the sudden tempest had brooded ominously over the darkening water, the clouds suddenly opened—the blue sky spread itself like an azure mantle over the rejoicing firmament—the golden sun reappeared, and Nature assumed the smile that is rarely far from her brow in the bright lands of the South.
“I may have another chance yet,” Stamford said to himself. “Why should I despair? Many a man now overladen with wealth has passed into a bank on such an errand as mine, uncertain whether he should return (financially) alive. Are not there Hobson, Walters, Adamson—ever so many others—who have gone through that fiery trial? I must fight the battle to the end. My Waterloo is not yet lost. ‘The Prussians may come up,’ as darling Laura said.”
Although receiving the advice of Mr. Merton, whom he personally knew and respected, mainly in good faith, he was sufficiently experienced in the ways of the world to mingle distrust with his expectations. It was not such an unknown thing with bankers to “shunt” a doubtful or unprofitable constituent upon a less wary student of finance. Might it not be so in this case? Or would not the manager of the agency company indicated regard him in that light? How hard it was to decide! However, he would try his fortune. He could do himself no more harm.
So he turned wearily from the dancing waters and the breezy bay, and retracing his steps through the crowded thoroughfare, sought the imposing freestone mansion in which were located the offices of the Austral Agency Company.
“How these money-changing establishments house themselves!” he said. “And we borrowers pay for it with our heart’s blood,” he added, bitterly. “Here goes, however!”
He was not doomed on this occasion to any lingering preparatory torture, for in that light he had come to regard all ante-chamber detentions. He accepted it as a good omen that he was informed on sending in his card, that Mr. Barrington Hope was disengaged, and would be found in his private room.