“Well, he'll be back to shake hands with you all very soon now,” Walton said, gratified at the way his fuse had ignited. “I've been out to see him a time or two, but he has always been too busy to come this way; but he'll get here—he'll lay everything down and head this way some day before long.”
Just then Walton caught sight of the breathless Toby at his elbow; he stepped out to the edge of the sidewalk, and bent down to hear what his clerk had to say.
“She's waiting for you in your office, Mr. Walton,” Toby panted.
“Who?—not—”
“Yes, sir; I told her to sit down and I'd fetch you in.”
“Oh, Lord, I reckon I'll get it in the neck, Toby!” Walton's face was a veritable mask of gravity and concern. “I reckon she's come to give the boy his walking-papers. I have thought it over till my head swims. No woman of her station and pride would ever let a man come back to her while a thing like that is hanging over him. If the woman and the child was dead and under ground, it might be different. She's come too quick to bear good news—a woman would tussle over a thing like that for a good month, and then ask for more time. No, the jig is up! I deserve it for the string of lies I was wrapping round that gang to make my case as good as possible.”
He moved slowly into the bank, hung up his hat in the little hallway deliberately, and quite after the manner in which he went to meet business proposals, with his rough face grimly set against rejections and compromises. She was going to cast him down, but he'd show her that he was game. She had practically closed the matter during his interview with her, and had only delayed longer at his earnest request. No, she shouldn't chuckle over his defeat. He didn't know but what he'd throw out a hint that Fred wasn't really so very “rampageous” in the matter, after all.
“Oh, how do you do?” he said, as he went in. She started to hold out her hand, but, not looking for such a movement, he failed to see it, and lunged toward his desk, where he sat and took up a pen.
“Well, I reckon,” he began, awkwardly, “you've' come to see me about—to say whether or not—that is, you remember, I said if you finally decided—”
“I have decided, Mr. Walton.” She rose and came and stood over him. Her voice was quivering; there was a blaze of burning joy in her face and eyes, but he did not see it.