These people always complained that Rufus was a cut above his station. They said it would do him good "to be taken down a peg." But they were dreadfully sorry for the people whom he had induced to invest money in his wild-cat enterprise.
There were talks of his being made a bankrupt, and hints were thrown out that he might soon have to appear in a court of law on a worse charge than that of being drunk and disorderly. Moralists were able to see in his case striking illustrations of the truth that "the way of transgressors is hard." It was against the eternal order that a man should permanently prosper who had turned his back upon the faith of his fathers. His failure was heaven's punishment on him for neglecting church and chapel, and his fall into the sin of drunkenness was to be traced to precisely the same source.
Some of these things were repeated to Rufus by not too judicious friends, but they little guessed how deeply they hurt him. It was not his habit to betray his feelings. When he was most deeply stung he said the least.
A few days after his return Felix Muller drove over to see him. He came as usual after dark, and his excuse was that he had been to see clients in the neighbourhood.
Felix was full of sympathy and generous in his language of commiseration.
"We must still hope for the best," he said, after a long pause, looking into the fire with a grave and abstracted air. "You have several months yet to turn round in."
"It will be impossible for me to find the money except in the way we agreed upon," Rufus answered, without emotion.
"It may look so now," Muller answered, with pretended cheerfulness; "but in this topsy-turvy world there is no knowing what will turn up. I wish it were possible for me to allow you an extension of time."
"I fear it would not help me, if you could," Rufus said, absently.
"Well, perhaps it wouldn't, but all the same I should like to give you an extra chance or two if that were possible."