A system of general credit
was springing up; the old, old payments in kind, in iron or even meal
and apparel, or gold, had given place to reciprocal understandings of
deferred indebtedness. The actual thousands of earlier commerce were
replaced by theoretical millions. His own realty, his personal property,
because of such understandings, were outside computation. They were, he
knew, reckoned in surprising figures; but in a wide-spread panic, forced
liquidation, the greater part of his wealth would break like straw. It
was the same with the entire country.
His thoughts returned to Susan, to the longing for the peace, the
inviolable security, she would bring to the centre, the heart, of his
life. No material catastrophe could shape, deplete, her richness of
spirit. Fragile as she was, with her need of rest, her diffidence and
pallor, she yet seemed to Jasper Penny the most--the only--secure thing
in the world. She defied, he murmured, death itself. Wonderful.
He moved slowly to his sombre bed room, with its dark velour hangings
and ponderous black walnut furniture, precisely scrolled with gilt. The
interior absorbed the light of a single lamp, robbing it of radiance. A
clock deliberately struck the hour with an audible whirring of the
spring.
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