“I don’t want to see Bill, John,” said the real estate man. “I want to see you. I am going to take advantage of my position as your guest, John. You cannot turn me off, or refuse to talk with me. You always were a gentleman, John, and I am sure you will listen to me now.”
Mr. Jarley looked at him a good deal as Polly had looked (at first) at Wyn Mallory.
“Come! don’t hold a grudge, John, just because I have been wicked enough to hold one all these years. I was wrong. I freely admit it. Come and sit down here, old man, and let’s talk all that old matter over and see where our misunderstanding lay.”
“Misunderstanding?”
“Aye,” said the other, warmly. “Misunderstanding. For I am convinced now that a brave and generous man like you, John Jarley, would never have knowingly done what–all these years–I have held you to be guilty of!”
He had put his arm through the boatman’s. Together they walked aside and sat down upon an upturned skiff. And they were sitting there long after it grew pitch dark upon the landing, with only the glow of Polly’s lamp in the kitchen window and that uncertain radiance upon the lake which seems the reflection of the distant stars.
Finally the two men stepped into a skiff and Mr. Jarley rowed it over to Green Knoll Camp. They did not reach the camp until nearly bedtime, and they came so softly to the shore that the girls did not hear the scraping of the boat’s keel.
Lavine seized his old friend’s hand before leaping ashore.
“Then it’s understood, John? You’re to get out of this place and come back to Denton? I’m sorry Dr. Shelton is ahead of me in giving Polly something substantial; but you and I are going to begin just where we left off in that Steel Rivet Corporation deal, John.
“About next month I’ll have a bigger thing than that in sight, and you shall have the same share in it that you would have had in the old deal. You used to be mighty good in handling your end of the game, John; I want you to take hold of it in just the same way again. Will you agree, old man?”