"What won't?" David groped, the words coming as if unguided, his thoughts gone on another mission.
"Oh, these little difficulties of yours—all this financial tangle, I mean; your failure, as they call it round town. That'll never budge Cecil."
The men were still standing, neither thinking of direction or of progress. But David moved close up to the other, his eyes fixed on the shrewd face with relentless sternness.
"It don't need to make no difference," he said through set teeth. "There ain't nothin' to get different—if you mean your son, Craig—or if you mean my daughter, Craig," the words prancing out like a succession of mettled steeds; "either you or him's the biggest fool God ever let loose. There ain't no human power, nor no other kind, can jine them two together. Perhaps I'll have to go beggin'—but I'll take Madeline along with me afore she'll ever go down the pike with any one like your Cecil, as you call him." David paused for breath.
"She'd be mighty lucky if she got him," Cecil's father retorted haughtily. "One would think you were the richest man in the county to hear you talk."
David's face was closer than ever. "Craig," he said, his voice low and taut, "there's mebbe some that's good enough for Madeline—I ain't a-sayin'—but th' Almighty never made no man yet that my daughter'd be lucky if she got. An' I know I'm poor; an' I know I've got to take to the tall timbers out o' there—where she was born," the words coming with a little gulp as he pointed in the direction of his home, "but I'm a richer man, Craig, than you ever knew how to be. An' you can go back to your big house, an' I'm goin' to hunt a little one for us—but I wouldn't trade you if every pebble on your carriage drive was gold. An' I'm happier'n you ever knew how to be. An' your Cecil can't never have our Madeline. An' when it comes to budgin', like you was talkin' about, I reckon I can do my share of not budgin', Craig—an' you can put that in your pipe an' smoke it."
David started to move on; he was panting just a little. But Mr. Craig stopped him; and the sneer in his words was quite noticeable:
"I suppose you'll be giving her to your charity student—she'll be head clerk in the Simmons' store yet, I shouldn't wonder."
David was not difficult to detain. He stared hard for a moment before speaking. "Mebbe they're poor," he said at length, "an' mebbe his blind mother has to skimp an' save—that settles any one for you all right. But it wouldn't take me no longer to decide between that there charity student an' your son, than it would to decide—to decide between you an' God," he concluded hotly, turning and starting resolutely on his way. "Now you know my ideas about success," he flung over his shoulder as he pressed on; "you're a success, you know, a terrible success—I'm a failure, thank heaven," his face set steadfastly towards home, bright with the hallowed light that, thought of his treasure there kept burning through all life's storm and darkness.
But Mr. Craig fired the last shot. "I wish you luck with the coming-out party," he called after him mockingly; "be sure and have it worthy of the young lady—and of her father's fortune," he added, the tone indicating what satisfaction the thrust afforded him.