"What difference will it make to Silas Osgood and Company?" she asked, with some hesitation. "It won't injure your firm, will it?"
"Oh, to a certain extent, temporarily, but nothing to be troubled about. Of course the local agent does not have to pay any part of his companies' losses. But—" he paused.
"But what?" asked the girl.
"Well, I have been in the business so long, my dear, that I have come to look at this sort of thing more from the standpoint of my companies than my own. I am ashamed—yes, sorry and ashamed—to have my city hurt my companies so sorely."
"But you couldn't have helped it—it isn't your fault," said Mrs.
Maitland, somewhat mystified, but guessing a little of what he felt.
"No," said Mr. Osgood, slowly; "I couldn't have helped it. But if it had to happen in Boston, I'm sorry it didn't wait until I was through."
"Then I hope it would be never!" Helen said, a little incoherently; but the point was plain.
"On the business side there is only one feature that cheers me," continued Mr. Osgood, "and that is the fact that my old friend James Wintermuth and his company, the Guardian of New York, are practically out of it all."
"How do you mean—out of it?" Helen's mother asked.
"You see, the Guardian, when it had to leave my office, lost all its local business. A good deal of it was naturally in this very part of the city which is burning. They undoubtedly have some term lines still in force,—policies written for three or five years,—but not many. They will escape with a very light loss indeed—whereas two years ago this conflagration would have involved them for an amount such as not many companies would care to meet."