Part 16 (1/2)

”Oh!” He nodded. ”Very well.”

He strode forward from the mantelpiece and approached the desk at which she sat.

”I suppose Cosimo wants to know; very well. As a matter of fact I'm rather glad you've come. Look here----”

He grabbed a newspaper from the desk and thrust it almost roughly into her hands.

”Read that,” he said, stabbing the paper with his finger.

The part in which he stabbed it was so unbrokenly set that it must have struck Katie Deedes as overwhelmingly learned.--”There you are--read that!” he ordered her.

Then, striding back to the mantelpiece, he stood watching her as if he had paid for a seat in a playhouse and had found standing-room only.

Amory supposed that it must be something in that close and grey-looking oblong that was at the bottom of his imperious curtness. She was sure of this when, before she had read half a dozen lines, he cut in with a sharp ”Well? I suppose you see what it means to us?”

”Just a moment,” she said bewilderedly; ”you always did read quicker than I can----”

”Quicker!--” he said. ”Just run your eye down it. That ought to tell you.”

She did so, and a few capitals caught her eye.

”Do you mean this about the North-West Banks?” she asked diffidently.

”Do I mean----! Well, yes. Rather.”

”I do wish you'd explain it to me. It seems rather hard.”

But he did not approach and point out particular pa.s.sages. Instead he seemed to know that leaden oblong by heart. He gave a short laugh.

”Hard? It's hard enough on the depositors out there!... They've been withdrawing again, and of course the Banks have had to realize.”

”Yes, I saw that bit,” said Amory.

”A forced realization,” Mr. Strong continued. ”Depreciation in values, of course. And it's spreading.”

It sounded to Amory rather like smallpox, but, ”I suppose that's the Monsoon?” she hazarded.

”Partly, of course. Not altogether. There's the rupee too, of course. At present that's at about one and twopence, but then there are these bi-metallists.... So until we know what's going to happen, it seems to me we're bound hand and foot.”

Amory was awed.--”What--what do you think will happen?” she asked.

Edgar gave a shrug.--”Well--when a Bank begins paying out in pennies it's as well to prepare for the worst, you know.”

”Are--are they doing that?” Amory asked in a whisper. ”Really? And is that the bi-metallists' doing--or is it the Home Government? Do explain it to me so that I can visualize it. You know I always understand things better when I can visualize them. That's because I'm an artist.--Does it mean that there are long strings of natives, with baskets and things on their heads to put the pennies in, all waiting at the Banks, like people in the theatre-queues?”

”I dare say. I suppose they have to carry the pennies somehow. But I'm afraid I can't tell you more than's in the papers.”

Amory's face a.s.sumed an expression of contempt. On the papers she was quite pat.

”The papers! And how much of the truth can we get from the capitalist press, I should like to know! Why, it's a commonplace among us--one is almost ashamed to say it again--that the 'Times' is always wrong! We have _no_ Imperialist papers really; only Jingo ones. Is there _no_ way of finding out what this--crisis--is really about?”

This was quite an easy one for Mr. Strong. Many times in the past, when pressed thus by his proprietor's wife for small, but exact, details, he had wished that he had known even as much about them as seemed to be known by that smart young man who had once come to The Witan in a morning coat and had told Edgar Strong that he didn't know what he was talking about. But he had long since found a way out of these trifling difficulties. Lift the issue high enough, and it is true of most things that one man's opinion is as good as another's; and they lifted issues quite toweringly high on the ”Novum.” Therefore in self-defence Mr.