CHAPTER XII
CONSEQUENCES
OFTEN it is not the first step that costs, but the waiting for the second. Last night, at a crisis, John Bagsbury had found it easy to make what was really the most important decision of his life. However carefully he had balanced upon the pros and cons of the proposition Sponley had made, when it came to the ex- treme instant of choice, the question had been referred not to his judgment, but to a senti- ment. His words had said themselves. But this morning it was the Banker, a very different person from the picture-seeing John Bagsbury, who sat at his desk trying to think through the situation, and to guess what would happen next.
The sentiment which gets a man into a diffi- culty rarely stays around to help him out of it, and what the Banker saw was enveloped
