“Wait till next year,” he said. “When I see the divorce papers I’ll feel a lot surer of the partnership.”
She snapped the clasp of her purse, laughing and moving to the door. She was wild to get away, to escape from the dark room that held such unpleasant memories, and the old man, whose steely penetrating eye, fastened on her, was full of unsatisfied query.
“Well, so long!” she cried, opening the door. “Next time we meet it will be more sociable, I hope. We really ought to be old friends by this time.”
She hardly knew what she was saying, but she laughed with a natural gaiety, and in the doorway turned and bowed her jaunty good-bys to him. He stood back and nodded good-humoredly at her, his face showing puzzlement under its slight, ironic smile.
Once in the street her demeanor again changed. Her step became sharp and quick, her expression keenly absorbed and concentrated. A clock showed her that it was nearly half-past ten, and she walked, with a speed that was as rapid a mode of progression as it could be without attracting attention, to the great bank on which the check was drawn. On the way down on the car she had thought out all her movements, just what she would do, and where she would go. Her mind was as clear, her movements as systematic as though she were moved by mechanism.
She ran up the steps to the bank and presented the check at the paying teller’s window.
“In one-thousand dollar bills, if you please,” she said, trying not to speak breathlessly, “all but five hundred, and you can give me that in one-hundreds.”
The man knew her, made some vaguely-polite remark, and took the slip of paper back into unseen regions. Berny stood waiting, throbbing from head to foot with excitement. She was not afraid they would refuse to cash the check. Her sole fear was that Cannon, as soon as she was gone, might have regretted his action and telephoned from his office to stop the payment on it. She knew that once the money was hers he would not make any attempt to get it back. His own reputation and that of his daughter were too inextricably bound up with the transaction for him to dare to apprehend or punish Berny for her deception.
Her heart gave a wild leap as she saw the teller returning, and then pause behind the netting of his golden cage while he counted out the bills. She tried to speak lightly to him as he laid them one by one on the glass slab. She was hardly conscious of what she said; all she realized was that the crisp roll of paper in her fingers was her possession, if not of great fortune, at least of something to stand between her and the world.
When she left the bank she walked forward slowly, the excitement which had carried her on to this point having suddenly left her feeling weak and tired. She entered the railway office and bought her ticket for New York for that evening’s train. Then once more emerging into the sunshine she directed her steps to the car which would take her to her sisters. She had decided to spend her last day in San Francisco with them. As the car whisked her up the hills she carefully pondered on how much she would tell them, where truth was advisable and where fiction would serve a better purpose.