"Stop!" said Mr. Carew, sharply. "How dare you use such language in my house, before my wife?"
Antony laughed shortly. He fixed his ardent blue eyes on the older man, and as he did so the sense of his own youth came to him. He was twenty years this man's junior. Youth was his, if he was poor and unlucky. The desire to say to the banker, "If I should tell you what I thought of you as a husband and a father," he checked, and instead cried hotly—
"God's here, at all events, sir, and perhaps my way of calling on Him is as good as another."
He extended his hand. It did not tremble. "Good-bye, Aunt Caroline."
Hers, cold as ice, just touched his. "Henry," she gasped, "he's Arabella's son."
Again the scarlet Antony had seen, touched the banker's face. Fairfax limped out of the room. His clothes were so shabby (as he had said a few moments before, he had worked in them like a nigger), that, warm as it was, he wore his overcoat to cover his suit. The coat lay in the hall. Bella and Gardiner had been busy during his visit on their own affairs. They had broken open their bank. Bella's keen ears had heard Antony's remark to her mother about being down on his luck, and her tender heart had recognized the heavy note in his voice. The children's bank had been their greatest treasure for a year or two. It represented all the "serious" money, as Bella called it, that had ever been given them. The children had been so long breaking it open that they had not heard the scene below in the drawing-room.
As Fairfax lifted his coat quickly it jingled. He got into it, thrust his hands in the pockets. They were full of coin. His sorrow, anger and horror were so keen that he was guilty of the unkindest act of his life.
"What's this!" he cried, and emptied out his pockets on the floor. The precious coins fell and rolled on every side. Bella and her little brother, who had hid on the stairs in order to watch the effect of their surprise, saw the
disaster, and heard the beloved cousin's voice in anger. The little girl flew down.
"Cousin Antony, how could you? It was for you! Gardiner and I broke our bank for you. There were ten dollars there and fifty-nine cents."