“Still,” mildly, “it is a good thing to have an opinion.”
“If it be worth anything.”
“If opinions are going——” Betty had opened the door behind the banker’s chair, and was standing on the threshold—“wouldn’t you like to have mine, father?”
“To be sure,” Arthur said. “Why not, indeed? Let us have it. Why not have everybody’s? And send for the cook, sir, and the two clerks—to advise us?”
Betty dropped a curtsy. “Thank you, I am flattered.”
“Betty, you’ve no business here,” her father said. “You mustn’t stop unless you can keep your opinions to yourself.”
“But what has happened?” she asked, looking around in wonder.
“Mr. Griffin has withdrawn his account.”
“And Rodd,” Arthur added, with more heat than the occasion seemed to demand, “thinks that we had better put up the shutters!”
“No, no,” the banker said. “We must do him justice. He thinks that we are going a little too far, that’s all. And that the loss of Mr. Griffin’s account is a danger signal. That’s what you mean, man, isn’t it?”