Steve, in spite of himself, chuckled. Terry, reassured about her father, giggled. Both sounds were audible; the two, mingled, were entirely too much to be borne.
"You—you disgrace to an honorable name," the old man called bitterly and wrathfully. "You——"
He broke off, hesitated, glared from Steve at the car's side to Terry already on the steps of the store, and concluded something more quietly though not a whit less furiously for all that: "You speak of papers signed. You don't mean you're actually havin' any kind of business dealin's, frien'ly dealin's, with the Temples?"
"Blenham brought word you were foreclosing on Temple; he had some sort of a crooked scheme to cheat Temple out of his land. I have just framed a deal whereby I put up the money to pay you your mortgage and——"
"You? You, Stephen Packard?"
"Yes," said Steve, wondering whether the old man were the more moved because of the shock of finding his nephew able to pay off so large a sum or because of the "frien'ly dealin's with the Temples."
There was a brief silence. Doctor Bridges mounted the steps; he and Terry were going in. Then again Hell-Fire Packard's voice burst out violently and Terry stopped short, her hands going suddenly to her breast. Her face, could they have noted in the pale light, was flaming scarlet.
"That hussy, that jade, that Jezebel!" came the ringing denunciation. "The tricky, shameless, penurious, graspin' unprincipled little she-devil! She's after you, my boy, after you hard. An', you poor miserable blind worm of a fool, you ain't got the sense to see it! Everybody knows it; the whole country's talkin' about it; how Temple's baitin' his trap with her an' she's baitin' her trap with herself an'——"
"Grandfather!" cried Steve, his own face flushing under the scathing torrent. "You don't know what you are saying!"
"I know what he's saying."