When he came out into the sunlight he threw down the fat cigar—plump with a suggestion of the rich man’s opulence—and ground it under his heel. In the anxiety of his intimate hopes, in the first cordiality of their interview, it had seemed as though the millionaire had chosen to meet him upon that common level of gentle society where consideration of money is banished. Now, in the passion of his disappointment, Wade realized that he had served merely as a diversion, as a prize pup or a game-cock would have served, had either been brought to “Castle Cut ’Em” for inspection.
Walking—seeking the open country and the comforting breath of the flowers—away from that sickly scent of the sawdust, his cheeks burned when he remembered that at first he had fearfully, yet hopefully, believed that John Barrett knew the secret that he and Elva Barrett were keeping.
Hastening away from his humiliation, he confessed to himself that in his optimism of love he had been dreaming a beautiful but particularly foolish dream; but having realized the blessed hope that had once seemed so visionary—having won Elva Barrett’s love—the winning of even John Barrett had not seemed an impossible task. The millionaire’s frank greeting had held a warmth that Wade had grasped at as vague encouragement. But now the clairvoyancy of his sensitiveness enabled him to understand John Barrett’s nature and his own pitiful position in that great affair of the heart; he had not dared to look at that affair too closely till now.
So he hurried on, seeking the open country, obsessed by the strange fancy that there was something in his soul that he wanted to take out and scrutinize, alone, away from curious eyes.
The Honorable Pulaski D. Britt had watched that hasty exit with sudden ire that promptly changed to amusement. He turned slowly and gazed at the timber baron with that amusement plainly showing—amusement spiced with a bit of malice. The reverse of Britt’s hard character as bully and tyrant was an insatiate curiosity as to the little affairs of the people he knew and a desire to retail those matters in gossip when he could wound feelings or stir mischief. If one with a gift of prophecy had told him that his next words would mark the beginning of the crisis of his life, Pulaski Britt would have professed his profane incredulity in his own vigorous fashion. All that he said was, “Well, John, your girl has picked out quite a rugged-lookin’ feller, even if he ain’t much inclined to listen to good advice on forestry.”
Confirmed gossips are like connoisseurs of cheese: the stuff they relish must be stout. It gratified Britt to see that he had “jumped” his friend.
“I didn’t know but you had him in here to sign partnership papers,” Britt continued, helping himself to a cigar. “I wouldn’t blame you much for annexin’ him. You need a chap of his size to go in on your lands and straighten out your bushwhackin’ thieves with a club, seein’ that you don’t go yourself. As for me, I don’t need to delegate clubbers; I can attend to it myself. It’s the way I take exercise.”
“Look here, Pulaski,” Barrett replied, angrily, “a joke is all right between friends, but hitching up my daughter Elva’s name with a beggar of a school-master isn’t humorous.”
Britt gnawed off the end of the cigar, and spat the fragment of tobacco into a far corner.
“Then if you don’t see any humor in it, why don’t you stop the courtin’?”