“You should know that as well as I do.”
“We could realize the twelve thousand eventually?”
“Of course, or we should not be solvent without it.” For once Ovington spoke a little impatiently.
“Then could we not,” Arthur asked, “by laying our accounts before our London agents obtain the necessary help, sir?”
“If we were the only bank likely to be in peril, of course we could. And even as it is, you are so far right that I had already determined to do that. It is the obvious course, and my bag is being packed in the house—I shall go to town by the afternoon coach. And now,” rising to his feet, “we have been together long enough—we must be careful to cause no suspicion. Do you, Clement, see Massy, the wine-merchant to-day, and tell him that I will take, to lay down, the ten dozen of ’20 port that he offered me. And ask the two Welshes to dine with me on Friday—I shall return on Thursday. And get some oysters from Hamar’s—two barrels—and have one or two people to dine while I am away. And, cheerful faces, boys—and still tongues. And now go. I must put into shape the accounts that I shall need in town.”
He dismissed them with calmness, but he did not at once fall to work upon the papers. His serenity was that of the commander who, on the eve of battle, reviews the issues of the morrow, and habituated to the chances of war, knows that he may be defeated, but makes his dispositions, folds his cloak about him, and lies down to sleep. But under the cloak of the commander, and behind the mask that deceives those about him, is still the man, with the man’s hopes and fears, and cares and anxieties, which habit has rendered tolerable, and pride enables him to veil. But they are there. They are there.
As he sat, he thought of his rise, of his success, of step won after step; of the praise of men and the jealousy of rivals which wealth had won for him; and of the new machine that he had built up—Ovington’s. And he knew that if fate went against him, there might in a very short time be an end of all. Yesterday he and Wolley had been equals. They had risen from obscurity together. To-day Wolley was a bankrupt. To-morrow—they might be again equal in their fall, and Ovington’s a thing to wonder at. Dean’s would chuckle, and some would call him a fool and some a rogue, and all an upstart—one who had not been able to keep his head. He would be ruined, and they would find no name too bad for him.
He thought of Betty. How would she bear it? He had made much of her and spoiled her, she had been the apple of his eye. She had known only the days of his prosperity. How would she bear it, how take it? He sighed.
He turned at last to the papers.