The bank began to fill up with people. Stellan proposed that they should go down into the safe deposit where he had some papers to look through.
It was quiet and cool down in the crypt of the Mammon temple. The electric lights hung more heavily and more motionless there than anywhere else in this catacomb of wealth, where deeds of mortgages, receipts and share certificates slept their sleep in hundreds and hundreds of polished steel boxes in the walls, and where there were discreet and comfortable little compartments for the devotions of the worshippers.
Sister and brother sat down in one compartment.
“So this is your refuge nowadays,” said Laura. “Well, but what about your Aeronautic Society and your ballooning? I have looked in the papers but have never seen your name.”
“No, I have given it up.”
“Yes, it is easier to go up with a hundred thousand in debts than with double the amount in income. But you still gamble in this little town, I suppose?”
Stellan shrugged his shoulders:
“I’ve given that up, too,” he muttered.
“But what in God’s name do you do then?”
“I cut off coupons and look after my malaria. But it was not of me we were speaking, but of you. Where do you intend to settle?”