“I wish I were, my dear,” he said soberly. “I wish I were. I’m afraid I’m a poor sort of fellow, Jill.”
“A poor sort of fellow,” repeated Uncle Chris. “Your mother was foolish to trust you to me. Your father had more sense. He always said I was a wrong’un.”
Jill got up quickly. She was certain now that she had been right, and that there was something on her uncle’s mind.
“What’s the matter, Uncle Chris? Something’s happened. What is it?”
Uncle Chris turned to knock the ash off his cigar. The movement gave him time to collect himself for what lay before him. He had one of those rare volatile natures which can ignore the blows of fate so long as their effects are not brought home by visible evidence of disaster. He lived in the moment, and, though matters had been as bad at breakfast-time as they were now, it was not till now, when he confronted Jill, that he had found his cheerfulness affected by them. He was a man who hated ordeals, and one faced him now. Until this moment he had been able to detach his mind from a state of affairs which would have weighed unceasingly upon another man. His mind was a telephone which he could cut off at will, when the voice of Trouble wished to speak. The time would arrive, he had been aware, when he would have to pay attention to that voice, but so far he had refused to listen. Now it could be evaded no longer.
Uncle Chris paused again, searching for the best means of saying what had to be said.
“Jill, I don’t know if you understand about these things, but there was what is called a slump on the Stock Exchange this morning. In other words …”
“Of course I know all about that,” she said. “Poor Freddie wouldn’t talk about anything else till I made him. He was terribly blue when he got here this afternoon. He said he had got ‘nipped’ in Amalgamated Dyes. He had lost about two hundred pounds, and was furious with a friend of his who had told him to buy margins.”
“Jill, I’m afraid I’ve got bad news for you. I bought Amalgamated Dyes, too.” He worried his mustache. “I lost heavily, very heavily.”
“How naughty of you! You know you oughtn’t to gamble.”
“Jill, you must be brave. I—I—well, the fact is—it’s no good beating about the bush—I lost everything! Everything!”
