Wint said nothing. He was moving away. She ran after him and caught his arm. “Wint! Don’t be a nut! Come on back! He’ll come around.”
He released his arm and shook his head. “That’s up to him,” he said. “I’ve eaten dirt. All I intend to.”
She lifted her shoulders, laughed. “Oh—all right. If there’s anything you want from here, let me know and I’ll get it for you.”
“Thanks. And—good night!”
“Good night,” she said; and moved back into the shadow of the coal shed and watched him disappear. Leaning there, one hand fumbling at her throat, she was a wistful and unhappy figure. But when Wint was gone, she laughed harshly, and turned back to her work in the kitchen.
If Hetty had wished to confirm Wint in his resolution to go his stubborn way, she could have taken no better means than to repeat her warning: “Don’t be a nut!” He took a certain delight in being thus unreasonable. What he did was his own affair; it concerned no one else. And he returned to the Weaver House in a surprisingly peaceful frame of mind and climbed to his room and went to bed with Muldoon curled on the floor beside him, and slept soundly and healthfully.
He woke in the morning to find Muldoon sitting by the bed, watching him and waiting for him to stir. When he opened his eyes, Muldoon wriggled and yawned and licked his hand, and Wint chuckled, and got up briskly, and dressed himself and went downstairs. The office was empty when he came down, for the hour was early; and he went out without seeing any one, and followed the railroad tracks to the station. There was a lunch cart near the station; and he crowded in among the toil-grimed crew of the night freight and ate a Hamburg steak sandwich garnished with a biting slice of onion, and drank a great mug of steaming coffee. Some of the men recognized him, and they talked to him with an unwilling respect in their manner. He liked this. They did not seem to be laughing at him, although they professed interest in the manner of his election, and asked him how he had worked it, and what he was going to do now. He told them, honestly enough, that he had known nothing about it beforehand; and he told them, with equal honesty, that he was asleep in the Weaver House when the word was brought to him. They seemed surprised that he should state these things without attempt at palliation; and they seemed to approve of him for doing so. Their attitude gave him renewed confidence, so that he went up toward town with his head high, ready to look men in the eye.
He began to meet people at once. They were for the most part men going to their work; and some of them eyed him angrily, and some seemed inclined to laugh at him; but most of them, like the railroad men, gave evidence of a certain new respect. They hailed him with effusive cordiality as “Mr. Mayor,” but they seemed a little afraid of the sound of their own words, a little afraid of what his attitude might be.
Wint had made his plans. He must get some clothes from his home, must cut himself off completely from his father. To this end he sought Jack Routt. Routt, like every one in town, went to the Post Office each morning for his mail; and Wint found him there.
Routt shook his hand heartily. “Wint, congratulations!” he said, under his breath. “This’ll be a great thing for you. It will steady you, Wint.”