Part 18 (1/2)
”I am glad you have begun to think,” he said, smiling at her. ”I knew the time would come, and, as it has come, let me ask you a question.
Did you request this Mr. Lyman to sign the pet.i.tion?”
”I mentioned it to him.”
”You did. That ought to have been sufficient. What did he say?”
”He said that he would--under certain conditions.” McElwin winced in memory of his and Sawyer's visit to Lyman.
”Conditions? How does he dare enforce conditions? What were they?”
”That I must avow my love for Zeb--Mr. Sawyer.”
”Well, is that all?”
”All! Isn't it enough?”
”You can do that, my daughter,” Mrs. McElwin said meekly.
”Yes, I could, if the time should ever come.”
”What time?” the banker asked.
”The time when I can say that I love him.”
McElwin crossed his legs with a sudden flounce. ”You put too serious an estimate upon love,” he said. ”You expect it to be the grand, over-mastering pa.s.sion we read about. That was all well enough for the age of poetry, but this is the age of prose. You can go to that man and tell him that--”
”That I have a Nineteenth century love for Mr. Sawyer,” she interrupted.
”Well, yes.”
”And he would laugh at me.”
”Laugh at you,” he frowned. ”No gentleman can laugh at a lady's distress.”
”But he might not regard it as distress. It might seem ridiculous to him.”
”Hump,” he grunted. ”Well, it's undignified, it is almost outrageous to be forced to do such a thing, but you must go to him. Your mother will go with you.”
”No, James,” his wife gently protested, looking at him in mild appeal.
”I don't really think I can muster the courage for so awkward an undertaking. Please leave me out.”
”Leave you out of so important an arrangement, an arrangement that involves the future of your daughter!”
”Then, why should not all three of us go?” she asked.
”I have trampled my own pride under my feet by going once,” he replied. ”Yes, and he treated me with cool impudence. And if I should go again something might happen. That man has humiliated me more than any man I ever met, and once is enough; I couldn't bear an insult in the presence of my wife and daughter. Eva, do you know what that man tried to do? He gained admission to my private office, and actually strove to bunco me out of a hundred dollars.”