As Squire Hexter and Vaniman walked on together the notary deferred comment on the recent happenings, as if he hoped that the cashier would open up on the topic. But Frank was grimly silent.
Therefore the Squire broke the ice. “What kind of a partner does Tasp Britt make in a polka, son? I saw you and him going at it pretty briskly.”
“I stopped him from making a fool of himself.”
“Quite a contract, boy! Quite a contract! And when you got to the matter of his purple whiskers and his lamp-mat hair—”
“I said nothing to Mr. Britt on such a ridiculous topic—certainly not, sir!”
“And yet you brag that you have stopped him from making a fool of himself,” purred the Squire. “Tut! Tut! He's worse than ever. I heard him tell you that you're discharged from the bank.”
“Yes, I heard him, too!”
“I didn't catch what you answered back.”
“I told him I should ask the directors to decide that matter.”
“Quite right! You're sure of one vote for your side—that's mine! And I think that when President Britt considers that he has no other charge against you except that you took away a horsewhip that he was using not wisely but too well—”
“I struck him across the mouth.”
“Oh, I missed that,” said the Squire, regretfully. “Why the pat?”
“I could not express my feelings in any other way. As to what those feelings were and why he stirred them, I'll have to ask you to excuse me, Squire Hexter. If I were going to stay in the bank I would explain the matter to you and to the directors. But I'm going to resign. Under these conditions, nobody has the right to tear the heart out of me and stick it up for a topic of conversation.”
The Squire glanced sideways at the convulsed face of the cashier and opened his eyes wide; but he promptly hid his wonderment and checked an exclamation that sounded like a question. “I reckon all of us better wait till morning, son—Tasper and you and I and all the rest.” He looked up at the bright stars in a hard sky. “A snappy night like this will cool things off considerable.”
“I'll wait till morning, sir! Then I propose to resign,” Frank insisted.
“Don't say anything like that in front of Xoa,” pleaded Squire Hexter. “I don't ever want to see again on her face the look she wore when she followed our own Frank to the cemetery; now that she has sort of adopted you, boy, I'm afraid she'll have the same look if she had to follow you to Ike Jones's stage.”
The supper was waiting, as the Squire had predicted; but he took no chances on sitting at table at once and having her keen woman's eyes survey Vaniman's somber face; he feared that her solicitude would open up a dangerous topic.
“Leave your biscuits in for a few minutes, Mother,” the Squire urged. “Let's have some literature for an appetizer.”
So he sat down and read the brotherly tribute in the new issue ofThe Hornet, and Xoa's eyes glistened behind her spectacles, though she decorously deplored the heat of the sting dealt by Usial. Frank, watching her efforts to hide mirth and display womanly concern at this distressing affair between brothers, forgot some of his own troubles in his amusement. Therefore the Squire's tactics were successful, and the talk at the supper table over the hot biscuits and the cold chicken and the damson preserves was concerned merely with the characters of the brothers Britt. Squire Hexter did mention, casually, that Frank had succeeded in inducing Tasper to stop whipping Usial. Xoa reached and patted the young man's arm and blessed him with her eyes.
Frank, as usual, helped Xoa to clear away the supper things. Early in his stay he had been obliged to beg for permission to do it, and she had consented at last when he pleaded that it made him feel less like a boarder in the Hexter home.
While she finished her work in the kitchen Vaniman sat with the Squire in front of the fireplace and smoked his pipe, but not with his customary comfort; the tobacco seemed to be as bitter as his ponderings; he was trying to stiffen his resolution to go away from Egypt.
Squire Hexter chatted. It was hard to keep off the Britt affair, but the notary tactfully kept away from the sore center of it.
“It has been going on a long time—the trouble between 'em, son. For two men who look alike outside, they're about as different inside as any two I've ever known. Tasper has been all for grab! He grabbed away Usial's share of the home place and then he grabbed Mehitable Dole while she was keeping company with Usial. I suppose Hittie reckoned there was no choice in outside looks, but saw considerable inducement in the home place. Plenty of other women for Usial! Yes! But I can't help thinking that I might be keeping bach hall in my law office if I hadn't got hold of Xoa in my young days. So there's Usial! Right in his rut because he's the kind that stays in a rut. Pegs shoes days and reads books nights. No telling how the legislature may develop him. Glad he's going.”
The Squire rapped out his pipe ashes against an andiron. His posture gave him an opportunity to say what he said next without meeting Vaniman's gaze. “Vona Harnden was a mighty smart girl when she was teaching school. I was superintendent and had a chance to know. Does she take hold well in the bank?”
Vaniman had hard work to make his affirmative sound casual.
“Have you met Joe, her father, since you've been in town?”
“No, sir.”
“Not surprising, and no great loss. Joe is on the jump a lot—geniusing around the country. Joe's a real genius.”
The young man looked straight into the fire and returned no comment. He knew well the dry quality of Hexter's satirical humor and perceived that the notary was indulging in that humor.
“Yes, Joe Harnden is quite an operator, son. Jumps, as I have said. A good optimist. Jumps up so high every day that he can see over all the bothersome hills into the Promised Land of Plenty. Only trouble is that Joe's jumping apparatus is so geared that he only jumps straight up and lands back in the same place. Now, if only he could jump ahead.”
Xoa had come in from the kitchen and was setting out a small table on which the pachisi board was ready for the evening's regular recreation. She broke in with protest. “Amos, you shouldn't make fun of the neighbors!”
“I'm complimenting Joe Harnden,” the Squire went on, with serenity. “I'm saying that when he uses that inventive genius of his on his own jumping gear he'll leap ahead and make good. For instance, son, here's an example. Joe invented an anti-stagger shoe—a star-shaped shoe—to be let out at saloons and city clubs like they lend umbrellas for a fee—and then the reformers went and passed that prohibition law. Always a little behind with a grand notion—that's the trouble with Joe!”
“Amos, you're making up that yarn about a shoe!” declared Xoa.
“Well, if it wasn't an anti-stagger shoe, it was—oh—something,” insisted the Squire. “At any rate, Joe was in my office to-day. He's home again. He's all cheered up. He is taking town gossip for face value.” The notary looked away from Vaniman and gave his wife an ingenuous glance. “Of course, I don't need to remind you, Xoa, speaking of gossip, that the folks will have it that Tasp Britt has put on that war paint so as to go on the trail of a Number Two. And Joe says that, in picking Vona, Britt has picked right. Joe's a genius in inventing. I'm expecting that he'll now invent a lie about himself or Britt or somebody else to make that girl either sorry enough or mad enough to carry out what gossip is predicting.”
Xoa had seated herself at the small table and was vigorously rattling the dice in one of the boxes by way of a hint to the laggard menfolks. “Women have a soft side, and men come up on that side and take advantage—and Joe Harnden's mealy mouth has always served him well with his womenfolks—but I do hope Vona Harnden has got done being fool enough to galley-slave and sacrifice for the rest of her life,” sputtered the dame. “Britt for her? Fs-s-sh!” Her hiss of disgust was prolonged. Then she rattled the dice more vigorously.
“It's a mighty good imitation of a—diamond-backed rattler, mother! But come on over to the table, son! She isn't as dangerous as she sounds!” The Squire dragged along his chair.
Vaniman leaped from his seat with a suddenness that was startling in that interior where peace prevailed and composure marked all acts. For the first time in his stay in the Hexter home his mood fought with the serenity of the place. The prospect of that bland contest with disks and dice was hateful, all of a sudden. His rioting feelings needed room—air—somehow there seemed to be something outside that he ought to attend to.
“Dear folks, let me off for to-night,” he pleaded. “It's been a hard day for me—in the bank—I'm nervous—I think a walk will do me good.”
He rushed into the hallway without waiting for any reply. He put on his cap and finished pulling on his overcoat when he was outside the house. His first impulse was to stride away from the village—go out along the country road to avoid the men who scowled at him as Britt's right-hand servitor.
But he noted that some kind of tumult seemed to be going on in the village—and any kind of tumult fitted the state of his emotions right then. He hurried toward the tavern.
Up and down the street men were marching, to and fro before Usial's shop. Vaniman saw tossing torches and the light revealed that some of the marchers wore oilcloth capes, evidently relics of some past and gone political campaign when parades were popular.
There was music, of a sort. A trombone blatted—there was the staccato tuck of a snare drum, and the boom of a bass drum came in with isochronal beats.
Vaniman went to the tavern porch and stood there with other onlookers.
“Give Ike Jones half a chance with that old tramboon of his and he ain't no slouch as a musicianer,” remarked Landlord Files to the young man. “I hope Egypt is waking up to stay so.”
“If we keep on, the town will get to be lively enough to suit even a city chap like you are,” said another citizen. “Hope you're going to stay with us!” But there was no cordiality in that implied invitation; that there was malice which hoped to start something was promptly revealed. “In spite of what is reported about Tasp Britt firing you out of your job!” sneered the man.
The morrow held no promise for Vaniman, no matter what the Squire had said in the way of reassurance. To stay with Britt in that bank would be intolerable punishment. He decided that he might as well talk back to Egypt as Egypt deserved to be talked to, considering what line of contumely had been passed in through that bank wicket. He was obliged to speak loudly in order to be heard over the trombone and the drums. Therefore, everybody in the crowd got what he said; he was young, deeply stirred, and he had held back his feelings for a long time. “I'm going to leave this God-forsaken, cat-fight dump just as soon as I can make my arrangements to get away. Good night!”
He was ashamed of himself the moment that speech was out of his mouth. He was so much ashamed that he immediately became afraid he would be moved to apologize; and he was also ashamed to apologize. He was, therefore, suffering from a peculiar mixture of emotions, and realized that fact, and hurried off before his tongue could get him into any worse scrape.
He suddenly felt an impulse to get back to sanity by a talk with Vona. He had never called at her home. He knew his Egypt all too well—short as his stay had been! A call on a young woman by a young man was always construed by gossip as a process of courtship—and until that day Frank had been keeping his feelings hidden even from Vona herself.
But, having definitely decided to leave the town, he was in a mood to put aside considerations of caution in regard to their mutual affairs, for one evening, at any rate. He was moved also by the reflection that her father was at home—and the Squire and Xoa had dropped broad hints as to that gentleman's methods of operation with his womenkind. Vaniman possessed youth's confidence in his ability to make good in the world. He wondered if it would not be well to have a general show-down in the Harnden family, in order that when he went away from Egypt he might go with the consolation of knowing that Vona was waiting for him, her love sanctioned.
Pondering, he arrived in front of Egypt's humble town hall. Young folks were coming out of the door. He remembered then! For some weeks they had been rehearsing a drama to be presented on the eve of Washington's Birthday, and Vona had the leading role; she had employed him at slack times in the bank to hold the script and prompt her in her lines.
He saw her and stopped, and she hastened to him. “I suppose a political parade on Broadway wouldn't break up a rehearsal, Frank. But that's what has happened in this case. Not one of us could keep our minds on what we were saying.”
“I'm not surprised. Any noise of an evening in this place, except an owl hooting, is a cause for hysterics.”
She walked on at his side. “You're disgusted with our poor old town,” she said, plaintively.
“I'm going to leave. Do you blame me?”
“I've heard about the—whatever it was!”
“That's right! Leave it unnamed—whatever it was!”
She touched his arm timidly. “Please be kind—to me—no matter how much cause you have to dislike others here.”
He stopped, put his arms about her, and drew her into a close embrace. There were shadows of buildings where they stood; no one was near.
“I can't do my best here, Vona. You understand it. But I can't go away and do the best that's in me unless I go with your pledge to me.”
“You have it, Frank! The pledge of all my love.”
“But your folks! They tell me your father is at home.”
“I have said nothing to father and mother—naturally.” She smiled up at him. “I have never had any occasion to say anything to them about my loving anybody, because that matter has never come up till now.”
“I am going home with you,” he said, grimly, and drew her along, his arm linked in hers.
“If you think it is advisable for me to talk with father and mother, I'll do it—I'll do it to-night,” she volunteered, courageously.
“Vona, I never want to feel again as I did this afternoon when I allowed you to go alone on an errand that concerned us both. After this, I'm going to stand up, man fashion, and do the talking for the two of us.”
Mr. Harnden had not had a bit of trouble late that afternoon in securing a promise from Tasper Britt to give him audience and view the plans and specifications of Mr. Harnden's latest invention. In fact, the consent had been secured so easily that Mr. Harnden, freshly arrived in town on Ike Jones's stage, and having heard no Egypt gossip during a prolonged absence from home, had blinked at Britt with the air of a man who had expected to find a door held against him, had pushed hard, and had tumbled head over heels when nothing opposed him.
Mr. Harnden went out on the street and put himself in the way of hearing some gossip. Then he went directly back into Britt's office and shook hands with the money king, giving Mr. Britt an arch look which suggested that Mr. Harnden knew a whole lot that he was not going to talk about right then. He said, ascribing the idea to second thought, that it might be cozier and handier to view the plans at the Harnden home. Mr. Britt agreed with a heartiness that clinched the hopes which gossip had given Mr. Harnden. The father causally said he supposed, of course, that Vona had gone home long before from the bank, and he watched Mr. Britt's expression when the banker replied to a question as to how she was getting on with her work.
“Yes, siree, she's a smart girl,” corroborated the father, “and I have always impressed on her mind that some day she was bound to rise high and get what she deserves to have. Come early, Tasper, and we'll make a pleasant evening of it.”
Mr. Britt went early, but not early enough to catch Vona before she left for the rehearsal.
Although it had been particularly easy to get Mr. Britt to come to the house, Mr. Harnden was not finding it easy to hold his prospective backer's attention. The patent project under consideration was what the inventor called “a duplex door,” designed to keep kitchen odors from dining rooms. Mr. Harnden had a model of the apparatus. With his forefinger he kept tripping the doors, showing how a person's weight operated the contrivance, shutting the doors behind and simultaneously opening the doors in front; but Mr. Harnden did not draw attention to the palpable fact that a waiter would need to have the agility of a flea to escape being swatted in the rear or banged in the face.
Mr. Britt watched the model's operations with lackluster eyes; he seemed to be looking through the little doors and at something else that was not visible to the inventor.
Mr. Harnden was short and roly-poly, with a little round mouth and big round eyes, and a curlicue of topknot that he wagged in emphasis as a unicorn might brandish his horn. Mr. Harnden considered that he was a good talker. He was considerably piqued by Britt's apparent failure to get interested, although the banker was making considerable of an effort to return suitable replies when the inventor pinned him to answers.
“Suppose I go over the whole plan again, from the start,” suggested Harnden.
“Joe, Mr. Britt looks real tired,” protested Mrs. Harnden from the chimney corner. Her querulous tone fitted her lackadaisical looks; her house dress had too many flounces on it; she had a paper-covered novel in her hand.
“Yes, Iamtired,” declared Britt, mournfully. “Sort of worn out and all discouraged. I feel terribly alone in this world.”
“Too bad!” Mrs. Harnden cooed her sympathy, affectedly.
“And I've been through hell's torments in the last few hours,” declared Britt; ire succeeded his dolor.
“You must try and forget how those ingrates have abused you, Mr. Britt. This is a beautiful story I have just finished. You must take it with you and read it. The love sentiment is simply elegant. And it speaks of the sheltering walls of the home making a haven for the wounded heart. I hope you have found this home a haven to-night.” She rose and crossed to him and laid the novel in his hands.
Mr. Harnden shoved his own hands into his trousers pockets, throwing back his coat from his comfortable frontal convexity. He presented a sort of full-rigged effect—giving the appearance of one of those handy-Jack “Emergency Eddies” who make personal equipment a fad: the upper pockets of his waistcoat bristled with pencils and showed the end of a folded rule and some calipers. He had all sorts of chains disappearing into various pockets—chains for keys and knife and cigar cutter and patent light. “Tasper,” he advised, briskly, “seeing that you're now in a happy haven, as the wife says, why waste time and temper on this town? The only reason why I have kept my home here is because the town is solid rock and makes a good jumping-off place for me; I can get a firm toe hold. Why do you bother with a dinky office like the one you started out for? With your money and general eminence you can be the Governor of our state. Sure! I know all the men in this state. I've made it my business to know 'em. Let me be your manager and I'll make you Governor like”—Mr. Harnden yanked out one hand and tripped the doors of the model with a loud snap—“like that! Open goes the door to honors—bang goes the door against enemies!”
Mr. Britt glanced at the title of the story in his hands—The Flowers Along Life's Pathway—and perked up a bit as if he saw an opportunity to pluck some of those flowers. But when Mr. Harnden went on to say that politics was not as expensive—with the right manager—as some folks supposed, Mr. Britt exhibited gloomy doubt. “A home is about all I have in mind right now,” he declared. “A man has got to have a happy home before his mind is free for big plans.”
“My experience exactly!” stated Mr. Harnden, graciously indicating with a wave of the hand the happy home which he rarely graced. “And knowing what I do about the help a good home gives an enterprising man, you've got my full co-operation in your efforts, Tasper.”
They heard the hall door open.
“It's Vona,” announced Mrs. Harnden. She beamed on Britt. “I wonder why the dear girl is coming home so early.”
The caller's face lighted up with the effect of an arc lamp going into action.
But when the sitting-room door opened and Vona escorted Vaniman in ahead of her, Britt's illuminated expression instantly became the red glare of rage instead of the white light of hope. He leaped to his feet.
The situation made for embarrassment of overwhelming intensity; there was no detail of the affair in front of Usial's cot that had not been canvassed by every mouth in Egypt, including the mouths of the Harnden home.
Vaniman made the first move. He bowed to Mrs. Harnden; he knew the mother; she had called on Vona in the bank. “May I meet your father?” he asked the girl.
Vona presented him, recovering her composure by the aid of Frank's steadiness.
“How-de-do!” said Mr. Harnden, stiffly. He did not ask the caller to be seated. Vona gave the invitation. While Vaniman hesitated, the master of the household had a word to say, putting on his best business air. “Ordinarily, young man, the latchstring of my home is out and the boys and the girls are welcome here to make merry in a sociable way.” Mr. Harnden was distinctly patronizing, with an air that put Frank into the intruding-urchin class. “But it so happens that this evening Banker Britt has seized the opportunity of my being in town and he and I are in close conference regarding an important matter in the investment line. You'll excuse us, I'm sure.”
It was certainly no moment to go tilting in the field of Love, and Frank, though undaunted, was deferential; and he was compelled to recognize the father's rights as master of the household. He bowed and turned to leave, carefully keeping his eyes off Britt.
But Vona had her word to say then; her foot was on the hearth of home; she had that advantage over Frank. Moreover, she was moved by the instinct of self-protection; she did not relish the notion of being left alone with that trio.
“We can kindle a fire in the front room, father!”
“There hasn't been a fire in that room all winter, dear girl.” Mrs. Harnden's protest was sweetly firm. “No one shall run the chance of catching a cold.”
“Exactly! It's tricky weather, and we must be careful of our guests,” agreed Mr. Harnden. “Call again, young sir!”
“I will,” stated Vaniman. He turned and addressed Vona. “The little matter will take no harm if it's postponed till to-morrow,” he told her. His gaze was tender—and the girl looked up at him with an expression which even a careless observer would have found telltale. Britt's vision was sharpened by such jealous venom that he would have misconstrued even innocent familiarity. He had been struggling with his passion ever since Vaniman had appeared, escorting the girl in from the night where the two had been alone together. Age's ugly resentment at being supplanted by youth was sufficiently provocative in this case where Britt ardently longed, and had promised himself what he desired; but to that provocation was added the stinging memory of the blow dealt that day by Youth's hand across Age's withered mouth; he licked the swollen lips with a rabid tongue. He beheld the two young folks exchanging looks that gave to their simple words an import which roused all his fury. Britt shook himself free from all restraint. He had been assured by the Harndens that their home was his haven; he took advantage of that assurance and of the young man's more dubious standing in the household.
Britt was holding to the paper-covered novel—it was doubled in his ireful grip and its title showed plainly above his ridged hand—a particularly infelicitous title it seemed to be under the circumstances, because Britt was shaking the book like a cudgel and his demeanor was that of a man who was clutching thorns instead of flowers. He advanced on Frank and his voice made harsh clamor in the little room. “You'd better not take on any more engagements for to-morrow, Vaniman. You'll be mighty busy with me, winding up our business together.”
“Very well, sir. And suppose we leave off all matters between us until then!”
But Britt had started to run wild and was galloping under the whip of fury. He had been doing some amazing things that day—he had written verse, he had blubbered foolishly with a girl looking on, and he had horsewhipped his twin brother before the eyes of the populace—but what he did next was more amazing than all the rest. Having sourly admitted to himself that he was a coward when he was alone with the girl, he took advantage of this moment when his choleric desperation gave him fictitious courage. He slashed into the situation with what weapons he had at hand—and he held a reserve weapon, so he thought, in the big wallet that thrust its bulk reassuringly against his breast. “This thing seems to have come to a climax; and it ain't through any fault of mine. I've never yet been afraid to talk for myself, in a climax, and I ain't afraid now. The time to do business is when you've got your interested parties assembled—and the five folks in this room—the whole five—may not be collected together again,” he stated, with vengeful significance, looking hard at Vaniman. Then he whirled on the girl. “Vona, I want to marry you. You know it. Your folks know it. It's all understood, even if it hasn't been put into words. I'll give you everything that money will buy. When you get me you know what you're getting. I put the question to you right here and now, before your home folks, and that shows you what kind of a square man I am. I don't sneak in dark corners.” He accused her escort with a glowering side-glance.
Mrs. Harnden simpered.
Vona had never found her mother an especially stable support in times of stress, but the girl did feel that the maternal spirit might arise and help in an emergency as vital as that one! Mrs. Harnden, however, was gazing into the arena and was blandly indicating by her demeanor, “Thumbs down!”
Then the girl appealed to her father, mutely eager; denied sympathy, she was asking for protection. But Mr. Harnden was distinctly not extending protection. He was looking at Mr. Britt. By avoiding what he knew the girl was asking for with all her soul in her eyes, Mr. Harnden was indulging his consistent selfishness; he hated to be worried by the troubles of others; others' woes placed brambles on the pathway of his optimism.
“Tasper, you have certainly jumped the Harnden family—jumped us complete! You can't expect a girl to get her voice back right away. But I suppose it's up to me to speak for the family.”
Vaniman stepped into the center of the room. “I suppose so, too, Mr. Harnden. I'll confess that I came into your house this evening with that idea in my mind.”
Now the girl had eyes only for the one whom she recognized as her real champion; those eyes would have inspired a knight to any sort of derring-do, Frank was telling himself.
“That being agreed, I'll speak,” stated Mr. Harnden, throwing back his coat lapels and displaying all his pencil quills.
“Just one moment, sir, till I have shown that Mr. Britt has no monopoly on courage—seeing that he has put invasion of a quiet home on that plane. I love your daughter. I want her for my wife. I came here to tell you so; but I was putting politeness ahead of my anxiety after you told me that you were engaged.”
“Harnden, that man hasn't a cent in the world,” Britt declared. “He sends away every sou markee he can spare from his salary. He buys checks from me. I can show 'em.” Out came Britt's big wallet; he threw down the paper-covered novel.
“I support my mother and I'm putting my young sister through school,” admitted the cashier. “Mr. Britt is right. But every time I buy one of his checks I buy a lot of honest comfort for myself.”
“I think, young man, that the Harnden family better not interfere with the comfort of the Vaniman family,” averred the father, loftily. “I'd hate to think I was a party to taking bread from the mouths of a mother and a sister. I'm sure Vona feels the same way.”
“Certainly!” supplemented Mrs. Harnden. “I understand a woman's feelings in such a matter.”
“Furthermore, I have discharged Vaniman for good and sufficient reasons,” said President Britt. “He stands there busted and without a job.”
“That is quite true,” Vaniman admitted. “I cannot remain with the Egypt Trust Company, but that's a matter quite of my own choice.”
“Oh, it is, is it?” scoffed the president.
“Yes, sir! I've had quite enough of your society.”
“Therefore, it seems to me that there isn't much more to be said—not here—in a home that we try to make peaceful and happy at all times,” said Mr. Harnden, pompously.
“But there's something more I'm going to say!” Britt was proceeding with malice in tones and mien. He had been waving the canceled checks. He pulled another paper from the wallet. “You think the directors would keep you on in that job, do you, Vaniman, if you forced the issue?”
“I do! Jealousy and petty spite would not show up very strong in a board meeting, Mr. Britt.”
Britt shook the paper. “How would this show up?”
Vaniman did not lose his composure. “Why don't you read it aloud? You have stirred curiosity in Mr. and Mrs. Harnden, I see.”
“And I'll stir something else in a girl you're trying to fool! But I'm gong to save this letter for that board meeting; I'll have you fired by a regular vote—and I'll send the record of that vote to every bank in this part of the country. Then see how far you'll get with your lies about my jealousy!” Britt was plainly determined to allow guesswork to deal in the blackest construction regarding the letter.
Vaniman turned his back on the others. He talked directly to Vona. The agonized query in her eyes demanded a reply from him. “Mr. Britt has in his hand a letter from some banking friend of his. The letter says that my father was sentenced to the penitentiary, charged with embezzlement. That is so. My father died there. But it was wicked injustice. You and your father and mother are entitled to know that an honest man was made a scapegoat.”
“Excuse me!” broke in Harnden. “We are outsiders and will probably remain so, and have no hankering to pry into family matters.”
“I did not intend to tell the story now, Mr. Harnden. It's too sacred a matter to be discussed in the presence of that man who stands there trying to make a club of the thing to ruin my hopes and my life. This is a hateful situation. I apologize. But he has forced me to speak out, as I have done, telling you and your wife of my love for Vona.”
“I don't see how you dare to speak of it, seeing what the circumstances are,” declared the father; there was a murmur of corroboration from the mother.
“It's a cheeky insult to all concerned,” shouted Britt.
“No, it's my best attempt to be honest and open and a man,” insisted Vaniman. “I have left no chance for gossip to bring tales to you, Mr. Harnden.”
But Mr. Harnden sliced the air with a hand that sought to sever further conference. “Absolutely impossible, young man.”
“Vona's prospects must not be ruined by anybody's selfishness,” stated Mrs. Harnden.
In his eagerness, encouraged by this parental backing, Mr. Britt did not employ a happy metaphor. “It has been my rule, in the case of bitter medicine, to take it quick and have the agony over with.” He put all the appeal he could muster into his gaze at Vona. “That's why I have sprung the thing this evening, on the spur of the moment. I ain't either young or handsome, Vona. I know my shortcomings. But I've got everything to make you happy; all you've got to do is turn around and take me as your husband and make me and your folks happy, too.”
Mr. Harnden's optimism bobbed up with its usual serenity. “We're making a whole lot out of a little, come to think it over!” He turned to Vona, feeling that he was fortified against any appeal he might find in her eyes.
In the silence that she had imposed on herself while her champion was battling she had been gathering courage, piling up the ammunition of resolution. Love lighted her eyes and flung out its signal banners of challenge on her cheeks.
“Why, our girl has never said that she is in love with anybody,” prated the father.
“I'll say it now, when there's a good reason for saying it,” cried the girl, her tones thrilling the listeners. “I'll say it in my own way to the one who is entitled to know, and you may listen, father and mother!”
She went to Frank, stretching her hands to him, and he took them in his grasp. “I understand! I can wait,” she told him. “And when the time comes and you call to me, I'll say, as Ruth said, 'Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.'” Impulsively, heeding only him, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Then she ran from the room.
And finding the light gone out of the place, Frank groped to the door, like a blind man feeling his way, and departed.
Mr. Britt, left with the father and mother, got his voice first because he had been pricked most deeply; furthermore, the girl's method of expression had touched him on the spot which had been abraded by Prophet Elias's daily rasping.
The suitor drove his fist down on the center table with a force that caused the model of Mr. Harnden's doors to jump and snap. “By the joo-dinged, hump-backed Hosea, I've just about got to my limit in this text business!”
“The dear girl is all wrought up. She don't realize what she's saying. I'll run up to her room and reason with her. Don't mind what a girl says in a tantrum, Mr. Britt,” Mrs. Harnden pleaded.
Mr. Britt, left with the father, began to stride back and forth across the room. The title of the book jeered up at him from the carpet where he had tossed the volume; he kicked the book under the table.
“The wife said a whole lot just now,” affirmed Mr. Harnden, soothingly. “Consider where the girl has been this evening, Tasper! Off elocuting dramatic stuff! Comes back full of high-flown nonsense. Gets off something that was running in her head. Torched on by that fly-by-night who'll be getting out of town and who'll be forgotten inside a week. Where's your optimism?” He reached up and slapped Britt's back when the banker passed him.
“She is in love with him,” complained the suitor; his anger was succeeded by woe; his face “squizzled” as if he were about to weep a second time that day.
“Piffle! She's a queer girl if she didn't have the usual run of childish ailments, along with the whooping cough and the measles. I have always known how to manage my womenfolks, Tasper. Not by threats and by tumulting around as you have been doing! You've got a lot to learn. Listen to me!”
Mr. Britt paused and blinked and listened.
Mr. Harnden plucked out a pencil and made believe write a screed on the palm of his hand while he talked. “'By the twining tendrils of their affections you can sway 'em to and fro,' as the poet said, speaking of women. I am loved in my home. I have important prospects, now that you are backing me.”
Mr. Britt blinked more energetically, but he did not dispute.
“Another poet has said that's it's all right to lie for love's sake—or words to that effect. I know the right line of talk to give Vona. And I won't have to lie such a great lot to make her know how bad off I am right now. She has always had a lot of sympathy for me,” declared Mr. Harnden, complacently. “I may as well cash in on it. She won't ruin a loving father and a happy home when she wakes up after a good cry on the wife's shoulder and gets her second wind and understands where she's at in this thing. Tasper, you sit down there in a comfortable chair and let me rub on some optimism anodyne where you're smarting the worst.”
When Mrs. Harnden came into the room a half hour later she looked promptly relieved to find Mr. Britt in such a calm mood; when she had hurried out he was acting as if he were intending to kick the furniture about the place.
“A good cry—and all at peace, eh?—and a new view of things in the morning?” purred the optimist in the way of query.
“She didn't cry,” reported the mother, with a disconsolateness that did not agree with the cheering words of the reports.
“Oh, very well,” remarked Mr. Harnden, optimism unspecked. “That shows she is taking a common-sense view and is using her head. What says she?”
“I may as well post you on how the matter stands, Mr. Britt. By being honest all 'round we can operate together better.”
Britt agreed by an emphatic nod.
After an inhalation which suggested the charging of an air gun, Mrs. Harnden pulled the verbal trigger. “Vona says she is all through at the bank.”
“Oh, I know my girl,” said Mr. Harnden, airily. “I'll handle her when morning's light is bright, and forgotten is the night!”
“I thought I knew my girl, too,” the mother declared, gloomily. “But I guess I don't. I never saw her stiffen up like this before. She sat and looked at me, and I felt like a cushion being jabbed by a couple of hatpins—if there's any such thing as a cushion having feelings.” Mrs. Harnden, settling her flounces, a soft and sighing example of “a languishing Lydia,” was as unfortunate in her metaphor as Britt had been when he mentioned a bitter medicine.
“Tell her that I'll pay her ten dollars more a week,” said President Britt, looking desperate. “She mustn't leave me in the lurch.”
“She'll do it! Nothing to worry about!” affirmed the father. “And I'll grab in as cashier till my bigger projects get started. I've got a natural knack for handling money, Tasper.”
The banker winced.
“We can make it all snug, right in the family,” insisted Harnden. He jumped up, opened the door into the hallway, and called. He kept calling, his tones growing more emphatic, till the girl replied from abovestairs.
“She's coming down,” reported the general manager of the household, taking his stand in front of the fireplace. He pulled on a chain and dragged out a bunch of keys and whirled them like a David taking aim with a sling.
Vona came no farther than the doorway, and stood framed there.
“What's this last nonsense—that you won't go to your work in the morning?”
“Your pay is raised ten dollars a week, starting to-morrow,” supplemented Britt, appealingly.
But there was no compromise in the girl's mien. “Mr. Britt, I realize perfectly well that I ought to give you due notice—the usual two weeks. That would be the honorable business way. But you have set the example of disregarding business methods, in your treatment of Mr. Vaniman. You mustn't blame others for doing as you're doing. Therefore I positively will not come into the bank, as conditions are. As I feel to-night I shall feel to-morrow! If you, or my father and mother, think you can change my mind on the matter, you'll merely waste your arguments.”
That time she did not run away. She surveyed them in turn, leisurely and perfectly self-possessed. Even the optimist recognized inflexibility when he was bumped against it hard enough! She stepped backward, challenging reply, but they were silent, and she went upstairs.
“Still, nobody knows what the morning may bring forth,” persisted Harnden, after waiting for somebody else to speak. “As I have said, I have a knack—”
“Of blowing up paper bags and listening to 'em bust!” snarled the banker, permitting himself, at least, to express his real opinion of a man whom he had always held to be an impractical nincompoop. “If you count cash the way you count chickens before they're hatched, you'd make a paper bag out of my bank. I'll bid you good night!”
He wrenched away from Harnden's restraining hands and shook himself under the shower of the optimist's pattering words, as a dog would shake off rain. In the hall he pulled on his overcoat and turned up the collar, for the words still pattered. He went out into the night and slammed the door.
Britt began his program of general anathema by shaking his fist at the Harnden house after he had reached the street. He shook his fist at the other houses along the way as he went tramping in the middle of the road toward his home. He even brandished his fist at his own statue in the facade of Britt Block. The moonlight revealed the complacent features; the cocky pose of serene confidence presented by the effigy affected the disheartened original with as acute a sense of exasperation as he would have felt if the statue had set thumb to nose and had wriggled the stone fingers in impish derision.
“Gid-dap” Jones and a few citizens who could not make up their minds to go to bed till they had sucked all the sweetness out of an extraordinary evening in Egypt, were walking up and down the tavern porch, cooling off. Mr. Britt, tramping past, shook his fist at them, too.
“Hope you enjoyed the music!” suggested Jones, wrought up to a pitch where he would not be bull-dozed even by “Phay-ray-oh.”
“Yes, and I hope we'll have some more to-morrow night,” retorted the banker. “You still have the poorhouse, the cattle pound, and the lockup to serenade.”
“All right! Which one of 'em do you expect to be in?” inquired Jones. “We wouldn't have you miss a tune for the world!”
When Britt arrived in the shadows of his own porch he stood and looked out over Egypt and cursed the people, in detail and in toto. He had become a monomaniac. He had set himself to accomplish one fell purpose.
In his office, earlier that day, he had resolved upon revenge; but his natural caution had served as a leash, and he had pondered on no definite plans that might prove dangerous. Now only one fear beset him—the fear that he would not be able to think up and put through a sufficiently devilish program.
He banged his door behind him and lighted a lamp which he kept on a stand in the hall. He creaked upstairs in the lonely house. His sense of loneliness was increased when he reflected that Vona would not be at her desk in the morning.
The village watchman noted that the reflector lamp shone all night on the door of the vault in the Egypt Trust Company; it was the watchman's business to keep track of that light. But he noted also, outside of his regular business, that there was a light for most of the night in Tasper Britt's bedroom.