“Yes, sir. Very unfortunate. Very unfortunate, indeed?”
“He is no loser by them, I hope?”
“Well, he is, sir, I am sorry to say.”
“Ah, I am sorry.” And when the lad had brought in the money, and the account was settled, “Are you returning to-night?”
“No, sir. My instructions were to travel by daylight.”
“Then you have an opportunity of stating outside, that you have been paid? I am anxious, of course, to stop this foolish run.”
The man said he would not fail to do so, and Ovington thanked him and saw him out by the private door. Then, taking with him certain books and the slips of paper that Rodd had sent in to him at hourly intervals, he went into the dining-room. Things were no worse than he had expected, but they were no better. Or, yes, they were, a few hundreds better.
Betty was there, awaiting him with an anxious face. She had had no slips to inform her from hour to hour how things went, and she had been too wise to intrude on her father. But many times she had looked from the windows on the scene before the bank, on the shifting crowd, the hasty arrivals, the groups that clung unwearied to the steps of the Butter Cross; and though poverty—she was young—had few terrors for her, she comprehended only too well what her father was suffering—ay, and, though it was a minor evil, what a blister to his pride was this gathering of his neighbors to witness his fall!
So, though she could have put on an appearance of cheerfulness, she felt that it would not accord with his mood, and instead, “Well, father,” she said, with loving anxiety, “is it bad or good?” And, as he sank wearily into his chair, she passed her arm about his shoulders.
“Well,” he replied, with the sigh of a tired man, “it is pretty much as we expected. I don’t know, child, that it is better or worse. But Rodd will be here presently and he will tell us. He must be worn out, poor chap. He has borne the brunt of the day, and he has borne it famously. Famously! I offered to take his place at the dinner-hour but he would not have it. He has not left the counter for five minutes at a time, and he has shown splendid nerve.”