“Well, you've shown me many of my biggest faults, Pole, and I am going to dangle one of yours before your eyes. I've seen you, my friend, take money that your reason told you was needed by your wife and children, whom you love devotedly, and, in a sort of false pride, I've seen you spend it on men of the lowest order. You did it under the mistaken notion that it was your time to treat. In other words, you seemed possessed with the idea that you owed that crowd more than you did that tender, trusting little woman and her children.”
“Damn it, you needn't remind me of that, Nelson Floyd! I know that as well as any man alive!” Pole's face was full, and his voice husky with suppressed emotion.
“I know you know it, Pole, and here is something else you'll have to admit, and that is, that you are this minute refusing something that would fairly fill your wife with happiness, and you are doing it under the damnably false notion that such deals should not be made between friends. Why, man, friends are the only persons who ought to have intimate business relations. It is only friends who can work for mutual benefit.”
“Oh, I can't argue with you,” Pole said, stubbornly, and he turned suddenly and walked down through the store to the front. Floyd was watching him, and saw him pause on the edge of the sidewalk, his head down, as if in deep meditation. He was a pathetic-looking figure as he stood with the red sunset sky behind him, his face flushed, his hair thrown back from his massive brow.
Taking his hat, Floyd went out and took him by the arm, and together they strolled down the street in the direction of Pole's farm. Presently Floyd said: “Surely you are not going to go back on me, Pole. I want you, and I want you bad.”
“Thar's one thing you reminded me of in thar at the desk,” Pole said, in a low, shaky voice, “and it is this: Nelson, the little woman I married hain't never had one single hour o' puore joy since the day I tuck 'er from her daddy's house. Lord, Lord, Nelson, ef I could—ef I jest could go home to 'er now an' tell 'er I'd got a lift in the world like that the joy of it 'ud mighty nigh kill 'er.”
“Well, Pole”—Floyd suddenly drew him around till they stood face to face—“you do it. Do you hear me? You do it. If you don't, you will be taking an unfair advantage of a helpless woman. It's her right, Pole. You haven't a word to say in the matter. The house will be vacant to-morrow. Move her in, Pole; move the little woman in and make her happy.”
The eyes of the two men met. Pole took a deep, lingering breath, then he held out his hand.
“I'll go you, Nelson,” he said; “and ef I don't make that investment pay, I'll hang myself to the limb of a tree. Gee whiz! won't Sally be tickled!”
They parted; Floyd turned back towards the village, and Pole went on homeward with a quick, animated step. Floyd paused at the roadside and looked after him through the gathering dusk.