Mahlon sank in his chair. He literally cowered. As he collapsed, it seemed to his tortured brain that Martin Moreland was increasing in size and consequence. He looked to Mahlon, in his hour of extremity, as much bigger and colder and harder than an ordinary man as were those damned dogs at his doorway bigger than an ordinary dog. There was insult, positive insult, in the way he gathered up the big sheaf of notes. How, in all God’s world, did there come to be so many? There seemed to be dozens and dozens of them. How did he dare to flip them through his fingers and leaf them over and beat them on the edge of his desk as if they were not the very heart and the blood and the brain, not only of himself but of his wife—his delicate, beautiful wife—and his daughter? And what was it that this fiend in human form was saying?
“These cancelled notes would make Mahala a fine wedding present from me, now wouldn’t they, Mahlon?”
Terrified, Mr. Spellman started to protest. Then the smile vanished from the banker’s face. He ceased to be like a cat and became like the bronze dogs again. He straightened up in his chair. He slipped a rubber around the notes with a snap, put them back in the drawer which he locked with great deliberation; then, in a dry, hard voice, he said: “Mahlon, between men, business is business. I’m not overlooking the advantage to me of this union between your daughter and my son. Mahala is a smart girl and a pretty girl, and capable of being the kind of wife that her mother is, and I’d prefer her about ten thousand times to some girl that Junior might pick up in a minute of pique and marry, without giving consequences due consideration. That’s where the shoe pinches me. I don’t hesitate to admit it. This bunch of notes is where the same shoe pinches you. You go home and talk this over with your wife, then your daughter—with your wife especially. Elizabeth’s got the sense to see the point to things; especially if you explain to her the present condition of your business. As for the girl, no chit of Mahala’s age is supposed to know her own mind.”
For the rest of that day Mahlon Spellman walked in a daze. In order to escape being seen by his clerks, he carried home an armload of books and papers, and going to his library, he plunged into them only to realize that by evading unpleasant things and putting them aside and living for the moment, he had also evaded the knowledge of how deeply he had been putting himself in the power of the Senior Moreland.
At his moment of deepest despair, Mahala came into the room, her arms heaped with catalogues from girls’ schools. She pushed the ledgers and business papers aside, and spreading the catalogues out in front of him, made a place for herself on the table facing him. After kissing him, she began holding the catalogues before him.
“Forget your bothersome old bookkeeping, Father!” she cried. “Come help me to decide which is the very nicest college for me to attend. I must make my reservations as soon as possible.”
Then she had a comprehensive look at her father’s face and knew fear herself.
With the candour constantly controlling her, she cried: “Father, dear, forgive me! I didn’t know you were at important business. We can select my college some other time.”
Mahala was on her feet, staring in wide-eyed terror, for her father’s head dropped on his arms on the table before him, and the nerve strain of many months, and of the day in particular, broke into great, shuddering sobs. Mahala, at a very few times in her life, had seen her father’s eyes moist with compassion, but she never in her life had seen any man cry as men do cry when their backs are against the wall and horrifying extremities yawn at their feet, when there comes to them the realization that they are not living for themselves, but for those that they truly love.
In a minute, Mahala was on her father’s knees beside the table; her arms were around his neck; and by and by, when he had grown calmer and forced himself into quietness, she began asking comprehensive questions. With the memory of many months past culminating vividly before her, she was not long in realizing the difficulty. With quick intuition and the clear insight that had always characterized her, she knew the situation. When her father assented to her question as to whether Mr. Moreland was pressing him about money matters, she knew the essential thing that was necessary for her to know.