When Egypt Went Broke, Holman Day [free ereaders .txt] 📗

circumstances, because Britt was shaking the book like a cudgel and his demeanor was that of a man who was clutching thorns instead of flowers. He advanced on Frank and his voice made harsh clamor in the little room. "You'd better not take on any more engagements for to-morrow, Vaniman. You'll be mighty busy with me, winding up our business together."
"Very well, sir. And suppose we leave off all matters between us until then!"
But Britt had started to run wild and was galloping under the whip of fury. He had been doing some amazing things that day--he had written verse, he had blubbered foolishly with a girl looking on, and he had horsewhipped his twin brother before the eyes of the populace--but what he did next was more amazing than all the rest. Having sourly admitted to himself that he was a coward when he was alone with the girl, he took advantage of this moment when his choleric desperation gave him fictitious courage. He slashed into the situation with what weapons he had at hand--and he held a reserve weapon, so he thought, in the big wallet that thrust its bulk reassuringly against his breast. "This thing seems to have come to a climax; and it ain't through any fault of mine. I've never yet been afraid to talk for myself, in a climax, and I ain't afraid now. The time to do business is when you've got your interested parties assembled--and the five folks in this room--the whole five--may not be collected together again," he stated, with vengeful significance, looking hard at Vaniman. Then he whirled on the girl. "Vona, I want to marry you. You know it. Your folks know it. It's all understood, even if it hasn't been put into words. I'll give you everything that money will buy. When you get me you know what you're getting. I put the question to you right here and now, before your home folks, and that shows you what kind of a square man I am. I don't sneak in dark corners." He accused her escort with a glowering side-glance.
Mrs. Harnden simpered.
Vona had never found her mother an especially stable support in times of stress, but the girl did feel that the maternal spirit might arise and help in an emergency as vital as that one! Mrs. Harnden, however, was gazing into the arena and was blandly indicating by her demeanor, "Thumbs down!"
Then the girl appealed to her father, mutely eager; denied sympathy, she was asking for protection. But Mr. Harnden was distinctly not extending protection. He was looking at Mr. Britt. By avoiding what he knew the girl was asking for with all her soul in her eyes, Mr. Harnden was indulging his consistent selfishness; he hated to be worried by the troubles of others; others' woes placed brambles on the pathway of his optimism.
"Tasper, you have certainly jumped the Harnden family--jumped us complete! You can't expect a girl to get her voice back right away. But I suppose it's up to me to speak for the family."
Vaniman stepped into the center of the room. "I suppose so, too, Mr. Harnden. I'll confess that I came into your house this evening with that idea in my mind."
Now the girl had eyes only for the one whom she recognized as her real champion; those eyes would have inspired a knight to any sort of derring-do, Frank was telling himself.
"That being agreed, I'll speak," stated Mr. Harnden, throwing back his coat lapels and displaying all his pencil quills.
"Just one moment, sir, till I have shown that Mr. Britt has no monopoly on courage--seeing that he has put invasion of a quiet home on that plane. I love your daughter. I want her for my wife. I came here to tell you so; but I was putting politeness ahead of my anxiety after you told me that you were engaged."
"Harnden, that man hasn't a cent in the world," Britt declared. "He sends away every sou markee he can spare from his salary. He buys checks from me. I can show 'em." Out came Britt's big wallet; he threw down the paper-covered novel.
"I support my mother and I'm putting my young sister through school," admitted the cashier. "Mr. Britt is right. But every time I buy one of his checks I buy a lot of honest comfort for myself."
"I think, young man, that the Harnden family better not interfere with the comfort of the Vaniman family," averred the father, loftily. "I'd hate to think I was a party to taking bread from the mouths of a mother and a sister. I'm sure Vona feels the same way."
"Certainly!" supplemented Mrs. Harnden. "I understand a woman's feelings in such a matter."
"Furthermore, I have discharged Vaniman for good and sufficient reasons," said President Britt. "He stands there busted and without a job."
"That is quite true," Vaniman admitted. "I cannot remain with the Egypt Trust Company, but that's a matter quite of my own choice."
"Oh, it is, is it?" scoffed the president.
"Yes, sir! I've had quite enough of your society."
"Therefore, it seems to me that there isn't much more to be said--not here--in a home that we try to make peaceful and happy at all times," said Mr. Harnden, pompously.
"But there's something more I'm going to say!" Britt was proceeding with malice in tones and mien. He had been waving the canceled checks. He pulled another paper from the wallet. "You think the directors would keep you on in that job, do you, Vaniman, if you forced the issue?"
"I do! Jealousy and petty spite would not show up very strong in a board meeting, Mr. Britt."
Britt shook the paper. "How would this show up?"
Vaniman did not lose his composure. "Why don't you read it aloud? You have stirred curiosity in Mr. and Mrs. Harnden, I see."
"And I'll stir something else in a girl you're trying to fool! But I'm gong to save this letter for that board meeting; I'll have you fired by a regular vote--and I'll send the record of that vote to every bank in this part of the country. Then see how far you'll get with your lies about my jealousy!" Britt was plainly determined to allow guesswork to deal in the blackest construction regarding the letter.
Vaniman turned his back on the others. He talked directly to Vona. The agonized query in her eyes demanded a reply from him. "Mr. Britt has in his hand a letter from some banking friend of his. The letter says that my father was sentenced to the penitentiary, charged with embezzlement. That is so. My father died there. But it was wicked injustice. You and your father and mother are entitled to know that an honest man was made a scapegoat."
"Excuse me!" broke in Harnden. "We are outsiders and will probably remain so, and have no hankering to pry into family matters."
"I did not intend to tell the story now, Mr. Harnden. It's too sacred a matter to be discussed in the presence of that man who stands there trying to make a club of the thing to ruin my hopes and my life. This is a hateful situation. I apologize. But he has forced me to speak out, as I have done, telling you and your wife of my love for Vona."
"I don't see how you dare to speak of it, seeing what the circumstances are," declared the father; there was a murmur of corroboration from the mother.
"It's a cheeky insult to all concerned," shouted Britt.
"No, it's my best attempt to be honest and open and a man," insisted Vaniman. "I have left no chance for gossip to bring tales to you, Mr. Harnden."
But Mr. Harnden sliced the air with a hand that sought to sever further conference. "Absolutely impossible, young man."
"Vona's prospects must not be ruined by anybody's selfishness," stated Mrs. Harnden.
In his eagerness, encouraged by this parental backing, Mr. Britt did not employ a happy metaphor. "It has been my rule, in the case of bitter medicine, to take it quick and have the agony over with." He put all the appeal he could muster into his gaze at Vona. "That's why I have sprung the thing this evening, on the spur of the moment. I ain't either young or handsome, Vona. I know my shortcomings. But I've got everything to make you happy; all you've got to do is turn around and take me as your husband and make me and your folks happy, too."
Mr. Harnden's optimism bobbed up with its usual serenity. "We're making a whole lot out of a little, come to think it over!" He turned to Vona, feeling that he was fortified against any appeal he might find in her eyes.
In the silence that she had imposed on herself while her champion was battling she had been gathering courage, piling up the ammunition of resolution. Love lighted her eyes and flung out its signal banners of challenge on her cheeks.
"Why, our girl has never said that she is in love with anybody," prated the father.
"I'll say it now, when there's a good reason for saying it," cried the girl, her tones thrilling the listeners. "I'll say it in my own way to the one who is entitled to know, and you may listen, father and mother!"
She went to Frank, stretching her hands to him, and he took them in his grasp. "I understand! I can wait," she told him. "And when the time comes and you call to me, I'll say, as Ruth said, 'Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.'" Impulsively, heeding only him, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Then she ran from the room.
And finding the light gone out of the place, Frank groped to the door, like a blind man feeling his way, and departed.


CHAPTER IX
THE NIGHT BROUGHT COUNSEL
Mr. Britt, left with the father and mother, got his voice first because he had been pricked most deeply; furthermore, the girl's method of expression had touched him on the spot which had been abraded by Prophet Elias's daily rasping.
The suitor drove his fist down on the center table with a force that caused the model of Mr. Harnden's doors to jump and snap. "By the joo-dinged, hump-backed Hosea, I've just about got to my limit in this text business!"
"The dear girl is all wrought up. She don't realize what she's saying. I'll run up to her room and reason with her. Don't mind what a girl says in a tantrum, Mr. Britt," Mrs. Harnden pleaded.
Mr. Britt, left with the father, began to stride back and forth across the room. The title of the book jeered up at him from the carpet where he had tossed the volume; he kicked the book under the table.
"The wife said a whole lot just now," affirmed Mr. Harnden, soothingly. "Consider where the girl has been this evening, Tasper! Off elocuting dramatic stuff! Comes back full of high-flown nonsense. Gets off something that was running in her head. Torched on by that fly-by-night who'll be getting out of town and who'll be forgotten inside a week. Where's your optimism?" He reached up and slapped Britt's back when the banker passed him.
"She is in love with him," complained the suitor; his anger was succeeded by woe; his face "squizzled" as if he were about to weep a second time that day.
"Piffle! She's a queer girl if she didn't have the usual run of childish ailments, along with the whooping cough and the measles. I have always