He discovered, then, that there was a mistake somewhere. The bank credited him with more money than he should have had. He said to himself, good-naturedly, that he ought not to kick about that. Nevertheless, he ran through his canceled checks, comparing them with his stubs, to see where the difference lay.
He located the discrepancy almost at once; and when he discovered it, he sat back and considered its significance with a puzzled look in his eyes.
The trouble was that his check to Hetty, for her expenses in Columbus, had never been cashed; and Wint could not understand that at all.
CHAPTER II
A FRIENDLY RIVALRY
THIS matter of the check that he had given Hetty stuck in Wint’s mind, disquieting him. This in spite of the fact that he tried to forget it, told himself it had no significance, that it meant nothing at all.
He gathered up the other canceled checks and put them back in the bank’s long, yellow envelope, and stuck the envelope in a drawer of his desk. Hetty had not yet cashed the check; that was all. She would cash it when she needed the money. He tried to believe this was the key to the puzzle.
But it was not a satisfactory key; and this was proved by the fact that his thoughts kept harking back to the matter during the next day or two. When he gave Hetty the check, he had expected her to cash it before she left town. In fact, his first thought had been to draw the money himself, and give it to her; but this had been slightly less convenient than to write the check. So he had written the check, and given it to her, and now Hetty had not cashed it.
It was characteristic of Wint that he saw no threat against himself in this circumstance. Wint was never of a suspicious turn of mind. He was loyal to his friends and to those who seemed to be his friends; he took them, and he took the world at large, at face value. So in this case, he was not uneasy on his own account, but on Hetty’s. For Hetty had needed this money; yet she had not cashed the check.
He knew she needed the money. Her wage from his mother left no great margin for saving, if a girl liked to spend money as well at Hetty did. She could not have saved more than a few dollars; twenty, or perhaps thirty.... Besides, she had told him she needed money. When he told her she had better go away, she had said: “A fat chance of that. Where would I get the money, anyway?” It was this that had led him to write a check for her.
She had needed the money; she had accepted it. That is to say, she had accepted the check, but had not cashed it. Not yet, at least. Why not? What was the explanation?