“No, wait!” she implored, tagging resolutely after him, and Wunpost halted reluctantly. “Now I know you’re mad at me,” she charged; “that’s the first time you ever called me Miss Campbell.”
“Is that so?” he replied. “Well, it must have been the clothes. When you wore overalls you was Billy, and that white dress made it Wilhelmina; and now it’s Miss Campbell, and then some.”
He stopped and mopped the sweat from his perspiring brow, but he refused to meet her eye.
“Won’t you come up to my office?” she asked 256very meekly. “I’ve got something important to tell you.”
“Is that feller Eells trying to beat you out of your money?” he demanded with sudden heat, but she declined to discuss business on the street. In her office she sat him down and closed the door behind them, then drew out a contract from her desk.
“Here’s that grubstake agreement, all cancelled,” she said, and he took it and grunted ungraciously.
“All right,” he rumbled; “now what’s the important business? Is the bank going broke, or what?”
“Why, no,” she answered, beginning to blink back the tears, “what makes you talk like that?”
“Well, I was just into Los Angeles, trying to round up that bank examiner, and I thought maybe he’d made his report.”
“What–really?” she cried, “don’t you think the bank is safe? Why, all my money is there!”