"Yes," he thought, "it is better to make them angry than to string them along and break their hearts at last."
He continued to reason with himself:
"In the first place, I can't tell which of them I like best; therefore I don't love either of them. In the second place, it will be years before I shall draw enough money to marry on."
There was a third place, but Evan wanted to avoid it, for in that "place" sat Frankie Arling. The Bonehead also sat there, with his arms around Frankie.
Unable to banish this picture from his imagination, Evan finally delivered himself up to thoughts of Frankie: only in that way could he depose the redoubtable Porter.
The more Evan compared Frankie with Julia Watersea and Lily Allen, and with others whom he had met, the surer he felt, of her superiority. He regretted having hurt her at his home on Christmas Day, and knew he had done it because he cared for her. Thoughts of Perry gave him a sick feeling in his vitals, but he could not convince himself that Frankie cared anything about "the porter." What had become of all the other Hometon bankclerks she had temporarily tantalized?
In his quiet room the Banfield teller mused. After two years of banking he felt himself further from Frankie Arling than he had felt the day he went away. He was within a few days of nineteen now; his views on everything had undergone a change. Yet, he knew that he was more desirous than ever of marrying Frankie. There are moments when we see our hearts before us under an X-ray more wonderful than that used in medicine. Evan was given a glimpse of his inmost self, and what he saw was startling to him. He knew he loved Frankie Arling, and that he would be happy if he married her, even at nineteen! Age probably has less to do with the proper kind of marriage than is often supposed. There are boys of seventeen who would make good husbands, whereas some men are never fit. Evan knew he could have settled down at nineteen and made a success of marriage—if he could only have afforded it.
Knowing, though, the futility of dreaming against such odds as seven dollars a week and the bank system of increases, he forced his mind off matrimony and thought of Frankie only as an unattainable object he loved. In the midst of his dreaming loomed up again visions of other girls, chiefly Julia and Lily. He felt guilty for having shown them attention. He experienced remorse, for it was possible he had (the phrase passed facetiously through his brain) "built better than he knew." The letters just burnt were not at all comforting in this connection.
Nelson had met bankboys who delighted in what they called "stringing skirts." Those fellows were despicable to him; they were scarcely worth despising. And their numbers were altogether too large. He had met others—very many—who were not in the despicable class, but who also were guilty of unfaithfulness. Why, he asked himself, were conditions in the bank conducive to such a state of affairs?
It was, experience answered, because a fellow's mind was unoccupied after hours, and for many other reasons. He was among the most attractive people, and was obliged to dress well and be amiable. If girls were attracted to him it could do business no harm—and business comes first. When a move came along a fellow was lonely for a while and longed to be back at the town he had just left. Naturally he wrote a more or less pathetic letter to the girl who had liked him best, and she, being also a little lonely, replied with a touch of tenderness. A fellow came back with another letter, stronger than the first, written in a particularly dark hour, and the girl left behind began to feel herself a party to something serious. Letters went back and forth until a fellow was invited out in the new town, or otherwise met another fair one. Then his letters dropped off. Probably he liked the girl left behind and could have fallen in love with her; but he knew he could not hold out hopes of marriage, and why spoil her chances by writing any longer than was absolutely necessary? Sometimes the girl left behind persisted in her writing. Several of them, if he had worked in a number of towns, usually did. A fellow could not be rude to them—he must let them down gradually; so he wrote regularly for a while, praying that the growing frigidity of his tone would finally discourage.