“Esther can’t buy it, either,” he said. “No one can. If she won’t have it as a present from me—why, then I’ll keep it for my own. I shouldn’t mind having it in the least,” he added, with a twinkle.
It was this last sentence which caused Foster Townsend to hesitate. The roar which his niece had dreaded and which Griffin had expected was not uttered. He scowled, took a turn to the doorway, stood there for a moment looking out, and when he turned back the scowl had disappeared. The corner of his lip lifted in a one-sided smile of surrender.
“You are a stubborn young mule, aren’t you,” he observed. “All right, do as you please. If money is no object to you it is to me and I ought to be thankful to save a little, I suppose. Esther, I’m much obliged for my birthday present.... Well, Griffin, you’ll go so far as to let me send Varunas for the thing, won’t you? Won’t insist on fetching it up to the door with your own hands?”
Bob, very much surprised—he could scarcely believe that his all powerful opponent had actually capitulated—laughed and stammered that he guessed there would be no objection to Varunas’s acting as carrier. Before he could say more his visitors had bade him good afternoon and departed. It was not until they had gone that he remembered that neither he, nor Esther, had mentioned meeting again.
His surprise would have been still greater if he could have heard a remark made by Foster Townsend to his niece as the pair walked along the path toward home.
“There’s just one thing I do want you to promise me, Esther,” Townsend said. “I want you to promise me that you won’t go down to that shanty again alone. Harniss isn’t a very big place and there is always talk enough in it for a square meal. No use giving it a Thanksgiving indigestion unless it’s necessary. Will you promise me that?”
She hesitated. She, too, had suddenly become conscious of the fact that the parting between Bob Griffin and herself was, in all probability, a final one.
“Why—why, yes, Uncle Foster,” she faltered. “I will promise, if you want me to. But—oh, please don’t think—”
“There, there! I don’t think anything. If he wants to see you, and you want to see him, let him come to the house once in a while. I shan’t make any objections to that—if he doesn’t come too often.”
She caught her breath. This was unbelievable.