“There, enough,” said her father. “Be silent, Betty. You’ve no business to be here.”
“Still, people should behave themselves,” she replied, her eyes sparkling.
Arthur had his answer ready, but Ovington forestalled him. “Very good, Rodd,” he said. “A word on the side of caution is never out of place in a bank. But I am not blind, and all that you have told me is in my mind. Thank you. You can go now.”
It was a dismissal, and Rodd took it as such, and felt, as he had never felt before, his subordinate position. Why he did so, and why, as he withdrew under Arthur’s eye, he resented the situation, he best knew. But it is possible that two of the others had some inkling of the cause.
When he had gone, “There’s an old woman for you!” Arthur exclaimed. “I wonder that you had the patience to listen to him, sir.”
But Ovington shook his head. “I listened because there are times when a straw shows which way the wind blows.”
“But you don’t think that there is anything in what he said?”
“I shall remember what he said. The time may be coming to take in sail—to keep a good look-out, lad, and be careful. You have been with us—how long? Two years. Ay, but years of expansion, of rising prices, of growing trade. But I have seen other times—other times.” He shook his head.
“Still, there is no sign of a change, sir?”
“You’ve seen one to-day. What is in Rodd’s head may be in others, and what is in men’s heads soon reflects itself in their conduct.”