“What’s that?” inquired David smartly. “We may as well have it out first as last, you know.”
“Yes,” agreed Jarvis, rousing himself. “I didn’t mean to—yet. But——”
He looked calmly at David.
“Can we not talk this over in a reasonable way?” he asked. “There is really no need of anger or——”
“Oh, come, man; let’s get down to business!” cried David, vastly pleased with himself and his own acumen.
He had not been at all certain as to the money, which he was now convinced Jarvis had given Barbara out of his own pocket. That he had surprised, compelled, browbeaten Jarvis, in what he was pleased to call “the fellow’s own game,” was a matter for pride, exultation. Who was Jarvis, anyway, that a whole countryside should stand in awe of him and his achievements? He, Whitcomb, had met the man and conquered him on his own ground. He even began to feel a sort of complacent pity for his abased rival, as his spirits rose from the depths of the humiliation falsely put upon him by Jarvis.
“‘You can fool some of the people all of the time,’ you know,” he quoted, with a confident laugh; “and you did succeed in fooling Barbara nicely; but the minute I heard you were in love with her, of course I——”
“One thing first,” interrupted Jarvis; “did she tell you—what had passed between us of her own free will?”
David burst into a laugh.
“Oh, that’s where the shoe pinches, is it?” he said good-humoredly. “Well, I don’t mind informing you that Barbara didn’t tell me a single thing about you—not at first. She’s a good little scout, Barbie is, and she saved your pride all right for you. She’d never have told me, I guess; but I taxed her with it, and, of course, she couldn’t deny it. Some girls would have snapped you up quick, with all your money and everything, and with me supposedly buried up in the Klondyke. But not Barbara. She’s worth while, that girl.”