Gergue nodded slowly and scratched the back of his head, tilting his hat forward with his knuckles. “He has his points,” he agreed. “But—he ain’t set in th’ traces yet, Congressman.”
Amos looked at the man. “What’s wrong?”
“Noth’n’,” said Peter. “Noth’n’. But—there will be.”
Jack Routt brought Wint’s trunk to the Caretall house and, before he left that day, he took occasion to drop a word of warning in Wint’s ear. “Look out for Agnes,” was his warning. “She’s the darndest little flirt you ever saw.”
Wint lifted his head angrily. “Cut it out, Jack!”
Routt laughed. “I’m only giving you some good advice,” he insisted. “You know—a certain young lady will not be pleased if you pay Agnes too much attention. And Agnes loves to make trouble.”
Wint repeated: “Shut up! Drop it!” And Routt lifted his shoulders and obeyed.
Two or three days after the election, Wint remembered that he was supposed to be working in his father’s office at the furnace. With an unadmitted twist of conscience, he went down to the office, half hoping to see his father and find some common ground for a reconciliation. But the elder Chase was not there, and the office manager greeted Wint coldly and told him that his place had been filled. Wint had ten days’ salary due him, and the manager paid it punctiliously. Wint took the money without thinking, thrust it in his pocket, and went back uptown.
While he was in college, he had been on an allowance; since then his father had paid him a salary out of proportion to his deserts. This was one of the vanities of the elder Chase. His own youth had been hard and straitened; and he took a keen delight in lavishing upon Wint the money he himself had lacked. He did this, not to please Wint, but to please himself; and whenever Wint crossed him, he was accustomed to bring up the matter, to remind Wint of his good fortune as though it were a reproach.
“Be sure I never had money to spend, when I was your age,” he was fond of saying. “And you roll in it. You ought to be ashamed, Wint. You ought to be ashamed.”