“Have you ever thought, Mahlon,” inquired Martin Moreland, “how very suitable a union between those two young people would be?”
Again Mahlon Spellman hesitated. A ghastly sickness was gathering inside him. He had thought of that very thing, and he had hoped for it. But he never had the slightest intention of coercion. He did not like the look of this way of going about a betrothal. He had to say something. He said it hesitantly: “Yes, I’ve thought about it. I have imagined that you were thinking about it. As soon as my daughter finishes college and becomes thoroughly settled in her own mind, I should like to join with you in the hope that they will think seriously concerning each other.”
Martin Moreland had been decent almost as long as he was capable of self-control. Outstanding in his memory was a vision of Mahala, gowned like a princess, crowned with youth and beauty, scouring the touch of his boy’s lips from hers as if he had been a thing of contamination. There was an edge to his voice and a touch of authority as he cried: “Nonsense! Sending a girl to college is the quickest way to ruin her! Send her to the kitchen and teach her how to be an excellent housewife like her mother! My boy is wild about her. He always has been. There’s not a reason in the world why they shouldn’t get married this fall and settle down to business.”
During this speech there rushed through Mahlon Spellman’s mind, first of all because he was Mahlon, his own estimate of what had just been said to him and the man who had said it. Then he thought of what his wife would say, and then he thought of his daughter.
Before he realized exactly what he was doing, he found his voice crying: “Impossible, Martin! Quite impossible! Mahala and her mother have their hearts set on the girl’s going to college. They have prepared for it for years. They have her clothing very well in hand, and in any event, I don’t think Mahala has ever given marriage a thought, and in that matter, of course, I couldn’t attempt to coerce her.”
All the cordiality dropped from Martin Moreland’s voice; all congeniality faded from his face. The lean lines into which it fell gave Mahlon Spellman a start, for he found they suggested to him the long head and the set face of the bronze dogs watching outside. There was something so casual that it was almost an insult in the way Martin Moreland reached into a pigeonhole he had previously prepared in his desk and pulled out an imposing packet of papers. Slowly he began to open them and to spread them out on his desk. Mahlon Spellman, quivering like a moth impaled on a setting board, surmised what those papers were. His surmise was of no help to the internal disturbances at that minute racking him.
As Moreland spoke, Mahlon Spellman forgot the bronze dogs, and there was something in the slick smoothness of the banker’s voice that made him think of a cat instead—a cat proportioned with the same exaggeration in comparison with the remainder of its species as were the dogs; a cat big enough to take a man and roll him under its paws, and toss him up and set sharp teeth into him until he cried out, and let him think he was escaping, and draw him back with velvet paws the claws of which flashed out occasionally.
“Your business is not very flourishing since the coming of the new store, is it, Mahlon?” asked Martin Moreland.
Mahlon Spellman’s lips were dry, his throat was dry, his stomach was congested, his bowels were in spasms. He could do little more than tightly grip the arms of his chair and shake his head.
“Is there any chance of your being able to pay even the interest on what you owe me?” asked Martin Moreland, now a man of business, staring penetrantly at Mr. Spellman.