said Bobby, with a gulp. “Honestly, Agnes, it’s a shame. It’s a low-down trick the governor played to put me in this helplessly belittled position with you.”
“Why, how strange,” she replied quietly. “I look upon it as a most graceful and agreeable position for myself.”
“Oh!” he exclaimed blankly, as it occurred to him just how uncomfortable the situation must be to her, and he reproached himself with selfishness in not having thought of this phase of the matter before. “That’s a fact,” he admitted. “I say, Agnes, I’ll say no more about that end of it if you don’t; and, after all, I’m glad, too. It gives me a legitimate excuse to see you much oftener.”
“Gracious, no!” she protested. “You fill up every spare moment that I have now; but so long as you are here on business this time, let’s attend to business. You may take me up to see Mr. Chalmers. By the way, I want you to meet him, anyhow. You have seen him, I believe, once or twice. He was here one day when you called, and he was walking with me in the lobby of the theater when you came in to join us one evening.”
“Y-e-s,” drawled Bobby, as if he were placing the man with difficulty.
“The Chalmers’ are charming people,” she went on. “His wife is perfectly fascinating. We used to go to school together. They have only been married three months, and when they came here to go into business I was very glad to throw such of your father’s estate as I am to handle into his hands. Whenever they are ready I want to engineer them into our set, but they live very quietly now. I know you’ll like them.”
“Oh, I’m sure I will,” agreed Bobby heartily, and his face was positively radiant, as, for some unaccountable reason, he clutched her hand. She lifted it up beneath his arm, around which, for one ecstatic moment, she clasped her other hand, and together they went out into the hall, Bobby, simply driveling in his supreme happiness, allowing her to lead him wheresoever she listed. Still in the joy of knowing that his one dreaded rival was removed in so pleasant a fashion, he handed her into the automobile and they started out to see Mr. Chalmers. Their way led down Grand Street, past the John Burnit Store, and with all that had happened still rankling sorely in his mind, Bobby looked up and gave a gasp. Workmen were taking down the plain, dignified old sign of the John Burnit Store from the top of the building, and in its place they were raising up a glittering new one, ordered by Silas Trimmer on the very day Bobby had agreed to go into the consolidation; and it read:
CHAPTER VII
PINK-CHEEKED APPLEROD RUSHES TO THE RESCUE WITH A GOLDEN SCHEME
Agnes had been surprised into an exclamation of dismay by that new sign, but she checked it abruptly as she saw Bobby’s face. She could divine, but she could not fully know, how that had hurt him; how the pain of it had sunk into his soul; how the humiliation of it had tingled in every fiber of him. For an instant his breath had stopped, his heart had swelled as if it would burst, a great lump had come in his throat, a sob almost tore its way through his clenched teeth. He caught his breath sharply, his jaws set and his nostrils dilated, then the color came slowly back to his cheeks. Agnes, though longing to do so, had feared to lay her hand even upon his sleeve in sympathy lest she might unman him, but now she saw that she need not have feared. It had not weakened him, this blow; it had strengthened him.
“That’s brutal,” he said steadily, though the steadiness was purely a matter of will. “We must change that sign before we do anything else.”
“Of course,” she answered simply.
Involuntarily she stretched out her small gloved hand, and with it touched his own. Looking back once more for a fleeting glimpse at the ascending symbol of his defeat, he gripped her hand so hard that she almost cried out with the pain of it; but she did not wince. When he suddenly remembered, with a frightened apology, and laid her hand upon her lap and patted it, her fingers seemed as if they had been compressed into a numb mass, and she separated them slowly and with difficulty. Afterward she remembered that as a dear hurt, after all, for in it she shared his pain.
While they were still stunned and silent under Silas Trimmer’s parting blow, the machine drew up at the curb in front of the building in which Chalmers had his office. Chalmers, Bobby found, was a most agreeable fellow, to whom he took an instant liking. It was strange what different qualities the man seemed to possess than when Bobby had first seen him in the company of Agnes. Their business there was very brief. Chalmers held for Bobby, subject to Agnes’ order as trustee, the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in instantly convertible securities, and when they left, Bobby had a check for that amount comfortably tucked in his pocket.
There was another brief visit to the office of old Mr. Barrister, where Agnes, again as Bobby’s trustee, exhibited the papers Chalmers had made out for her, showing that the funds previously left in her charge had been duly paid over to Bobby as per the provisions of the will, and thereupon filed her order for a similar amount. Barrister received them with an “I told you so” air which amounted almost to satisfaction. He was quite used to seeing the sons of rich men hastening to become poor men, and he had so evidently classed Bobby as one of the regular sort, that Bobby took quite justifiable umbrage and decided that if he had any legal business whatever he would put it into the hands of Chalmers.
He spent the rest of the day with Agnes and took dinner at the Ellistons’, where jolly Aunt Constance and shrewd Uncle Dan, in genuine sympathy, desisted so palpably from their usual joking about his “business career,” that Bobby was more ill at ease than if they had said all the grimly humorous things which popped into their minds. For that reason he went home rather early, and tumbled into bed resolving upon the new future he was to face to-morrow.
At least, he consoled himself with a sigh, he was now a man of experience. He had learned something of the world. He was not further to be hoodwinked. His last confused vision was of Silas Trimmer on his knees begging for mercy, and the next thing he knew was that some one was reminding him, with annoying insistency, of the early call he had left.
The world looked brighter that morning, and he was quite hopeful when, in the dim old study, seated at his father’s desk and with the portrait of stern old John Burnit frowning and yet shrewdly twinkling down upon him, he received Johnson, dry and sour looking as if he expected ill news, and Applerod, bright and radiant as if Fortune’s purse were just about to open to him.
“Well, boys,” said Bobby cheerily, “we’re going to stick right together. We’re going to start into a new business as soon as we can find one that suits us, and your employment begins from this minute. We’re beginning with a capital of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” and rather pompously he spread the check upon the desk. His pompousness faded in something under fifteen seconds, for it was in about that length of time that he caught sight of a plain gray envelope then in the process of emerging from Johnson’s pocket. He accepted it with something of reluctance, but opened it nevertheless; and this was the message of the late John Burnit:
“In most cases the difference between spending money and investing it is wholly a matter of speed. Not one man in ten knows when and where and how to put a dollar properly to work; so the only financial education I expect you to get out of an attempt to go into business is a painful lesson in subtraction.”
“This letter, Johnson, is only a delicate intimation from the governor that I’ll make another blooming ass of myself with this,” commented Bobby, tapping his finger on the check, and placing the letter face downward beside it, where he eyed it askance.
“A quarter of a million!” observed Applerod, rolling out the amount with relish. “A great deal can be done with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you know.”
