“Why, colonel! I was just going up to meet you.” He had really thought he would walk off his exultation in that direction.
“I am very sorry to say, Mr. Fulkerson,” the colonel began, gravely, “that Mr. Dryfoos adheres to his position.”
“Oh, all right,” said Fulkerson, with unabated joy. “It's what I expected. Well, my course is clear; I shall stand by March, and I guess the world won't come to an end if he bounces us both. But I'm everlastingly obliged to you, Colonel Woodburn, and I don't know what to say to you. I—I won't detain you now; it's so late. I'll see you in the morning. Good-ni—”
Fulkerson did not realize that it takes two to part. The colonel laid hold of his arm and turned away with him. “I will walk toward your place with you. I can understand why you should be anxious to know the particulars of my interview with Mr. Dryfoos”; and in the statement which followed he did not spare him the smallest. It outlasted their walk and detained them long on the steps of the 'Every Other Week' building. But at the end Fulkerson let himself in with his key as light of heart as if he had been listening to the gayest promises that fortune could make.
By the time he met March at the office next morning, a little, but only a very little, misgiving saddened his golden heaven. He took March's hand with high courage, and said, “Well, the old man sticks to his point, March.” He added, with the sense of saying it before Miss Woodburn: “And I stick by you. I've thought it all over, and I'd rather be right with you than wrong with him.”
“Well, I appreciate your motive, Fulkerson,” said March. “But perhaps—perhaps we can save over our heroics for another occasion. Lindau seems to have got in with his, for the present.”
He told him of Lindau's last visit, and they stood a moment looking at each other rather queerly. Fulkerson was the first to recover his spirits. “Well,” he said, cheerily, “that let's us out.”
“Does it? I'm not sure it lets me out,” said March; but he said this in tribute to his crippled self-respect rather than as a forecast of any action in the matter.
“Why, what are you going to do?” Fulkerson asked. “If Lindau won't work for Dryfoos, you can't make him.”
March sighed. “What are you going to do with this money?” He glanced at the heap of bills he had flung on the table between them.