Once having made up his mind, he was more at rest than he had been for weeks. He did not give much thought to the manner of attacking the subject, merely saying to himself that he was sure she could be induced to reveal all she knew by diplomacy. Of only one thing he felt convinced, and he felt this with the conviction that one has of the mandates of destiny—that the next time he saw her alone he would learn from her all there was to learn. Beyond this he shrank from looking.
While he had no desire to put off the interview that two months before would have seemed an impossibility, he was deliberative and unhurried. Thinking that the afternoon was the best time to find her by herself, he went to the house near South Park at four o’clock, a week after he had seen her at the opera. She was out, and on a second visit at a similar hour the result was the same. He had pushed his card under the door, and had hoped that she might have acknowledged the visits by a note; but she made no sign.
At the end of the second week he went again, in the evening, and found her, as usual, sitting with her father. She mentioned her disappointment at missing him, and said that the afternoon was a bad time to find her, as she was almost always either busy or out. This seemed to him to plainly indicate that she did not wish to encourage his afternoon visits. He began to wonder if she was endeavoring to avoid seeing him alone. If she was, she must have had some inkling of what he contemplated. The thought spurred him to a feverish determination to have the explanation with her at the earliest opportunity. Heretofore she had appeared to him a factor which, if he chose to be hard enough, he could always manage. Now, if she were to oppose him with strategy and evasion, the difficulties of solving the problem would be increased a hundredfold.
But if Viola seemed desirous of escaping a tête-à -tête, the colonel was more assiduous than ever in seeking the society and bounty of his obliging friend. The sum to which he now stood indebted to Gault he described as being “quite formidable.” He constantly spoke of repaying it, and made many vague allusions to promising enterprises that were destined to enrich his old age.
Two days after the evening visit the colonel appeared as usual, and this time produced a sheet of paper upon which was written a statement of his indebtedness. It was copied out in his clear, fine hand, each sum scrupulously set down with its corresponding date, and at the end of the column of figures the total—$510. Slapping his breast-pocket, he remarked that a duplicate of the memorandum lay there for his benefit and the stimulating of his memory.
“And when the days of the lean kine are over,” he said, “we will wipe it all out—clean the slate.”
His friend disclaimed any eagerness as to the arrival of these golden days, accommodated the colonel with his customary sum, and saw the old man go striding out in lofty satisfaction. Left by himself, he idly looked over the colonel’s memorandum. It was a full statement, the dates preceding each sum, and at the top bearing the legend, “Memorandum of moneys loaned by John Gault to Ramsay Reed.”
He threw the paper into a drawer of his desk and thought no more about it, though he could not forbear smiling at the old man’s studied preciseness.
After considerable reflection, Gault decided that the best way to bring matters to the crisis he desired was to ask Viola to accord him an interview. He would manage to make the request at some moment when the old man was either not listening—which was unusual—or had preceded him into the hall in the moment of departure. If Viola refused, as he had some reason to think she might, he would have to arrange another plan, but, for the present, this was the most feasible one he could think of.
It was late for a cross-town visit when he started from his club. The evening, too, was one of the most disagreeable of the season. The city lay soaked under a blanket of fog. On the West Side there was so much life and activity on the streets, so much light and sound and pressure of shifting humanity, that, to a certain extent, the dreariness of the weather was overcome; but in the dark desolation of the old quarter the chill weight of the fog lay like a veil of mystery over the silent streets.