The bulls were the sport of everybody. When closing-time came
Trent had made 100,000 pounds, and was looked upon everywhere as one
of the rocks of finance.
Only then he began to realise what the strain had been to him. His
hard, impassive look had never altered, he had been seen everywhere
in his accustomed City haunts, his hat a little better brushed than
usual, his clothes a little more carefully put on, his buttonhole
more obvious and his laugh readier. No one guessed the agony through
which he had passed, no one knew that he had spent the night at a
little inn twelve miles away, to which he had walked after nine
o'clock at night. He had not a single confidant, even his cashier
had no idea whence came the large sums of money which he had paid
away right and left. But when it was all over he left the City,
and, leaning back in the corner of his little brougham, was driven
away to Pont Street. Here he locked himself in his room, took off
his coat and threw himself upon a sofa with a big cigar between
his teeth.
"If you let any one in to see me, Miles," he told the footman, "I'll
kick you out of the house." So, though the bell rang often, he
remained alone. But as he lay there with half-closed eyes living
again through the tortures of the last few hours, he heard a voice
that startled him.
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