There was only one person who remained unmoved. It was de Barral

himself. He preserved his serene, gentle expression, I am told (for I

have not witnessed those scenes myself), and looked around at the people

with an air of placid sufficiency which was the first hint to the world

of the man's overweening, unmeasurable conceit, hidden hitherto under a

diffident manner. It could be seen too in his dogged assertion that if

he had been given enough time and a lot more money everything would have

come right. And there were some people (yes, amongst his very victims)

who more than half believed him, even after the criminal prosecution

which soon followed. When placed in the dock he lost his steadiness as

if some sustaining illusion had gone to pieces within him suddenly. He

ceased to be himself in manner completely, and even in disposition, in so

far that his faded neutral eyes matching his discoloured hair so well,

were discovered then to be capable of expressing a sort of underhand

hate. He was at first defiant, then insolent, then broke down and burst

into tears; but it might have been from rage. Then he calmed down,

returned to his soft manner of speech and to that unassuming quiet

bearing which had been usual with him even in his greatest days. But it

seemed as though in this moment of change he had at last perceived what a

power he had been; for he remarked to one of the prosecuting counsel who

had assumed a lofty moral tone in questioning him, that--yes, he had

gambled--he liked cards. But that only a year ago a host of smart people

would have been only too pleased to take a hand at cards with him. Yes--he

went on--some of the very people who were there accommodated with seats

on the bench; and turning upon the counsel "You yourself as well," he

cried. He could have had half the town at his rooms to fawn upon him if

he had cared for that sort of thing. "Why, now I think of it, it took me

most of my time to keep people, just of your sort, off me," he ended with

a good humoured--quite unobtrusive, contempt, as though the fact had

dawned upon him for the first time.

This was the moment, the only moment, when he had perhaps all the

audience in Court with him, in a hush of dreary silence. And then the

dreary proceedings were resumed. For all the outside excitement it was

the most dreary of all celebrated trials. The bankruptcy proceedings had

exhausted all the laughter there was in it. Only the fact of wide-spread

ruin remained, and the resentment of a mass of people for having been

fooled by means too simple to save their self-respect from a deep wound

which the cleverness of a consummate scoundrel would not have inflicted.

A shamefaced amazement attended these proceedings in which de Barral was

not being exposed alone. For himself his only cry was: Time! Time! Time

would have set everything right. In time some of these speculations of

his were certain to have succeeded. He repeated this defence, this

excuse, this confession of faith, with wearisome iteration. Everything

he had done or left undone had been to gain time. He had hypnotized

himself with the word. Sometimes, I am told, his appearance was

ecstatic, his motionless pale eyes seemed to be gazing down the vista of

future ages. Time--and of course, more money. "Ah! If only you had

left me alone for a couple of years more," he cried once in accents of

passionate belief. "The money was coming in all right." The deposits

you understand--the savings of Thrift. Oh yes they had been coming in to

the very last moment. And he regretted them. He had arrived to regard

them as his own by a sort of mystical persuasion. And yet it was a

perfectly true cry, when he turned once more on the counsel who was

beginning a question with the words "You have had all these immense sums

. . . " with the indignant retort "What have I had out of them?"




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