This frame of mind was responsible for the fact that when he had finished dressing and gone below he spoke patronizingly to Mr. Appel, who paid an income tax on fourteen million.
It was a wrench after all—the going—and the fact that his aunt did not relent made it the harder. It was the first time he ever had packed his own boxes and decided upon the clothes in which he should travel. But she sat erect and unyielding at the far end of the veranda while he was in the midst of a sympathetic leave-taking from the guests of The Colonial. There were tears in Mrs. Budlong's eyes when she warned him not to fall into bad habits, and Wallie's were close to the surface when he promised her he would not.
"Aw—you'll be back when it gets cold weather," said Mr. Appel.
"I shall succeed or leave my bones in Wyoming!" Wallie declared, dramatically.
Mr. Appel snickered: "They'll help fertilize the soil, which I'm told needs it." His early struggles had made Mr. Appel callous.
Miss Macpherson, looking straight ahead, gave no indication that she saw her nephew coming.
"Will you say good-bye to me, Aunt Mary?"
She appeared not to see the hand he put out to her.
"I trust you will have a safe journey, Wallace." Her voice was a breath from the Arctic.
He stood before her a moment feeling suddenly friendless. "This makes me very unhappy, Aunt Mary," he said, sorrowfully.