When Vona left him that afternoon, Vaniman paced the floor.
She had gone bravely to her meeting with Britt, bearing Frank's kiss on her cheek—a caress of encouragement when he had walked with her to the door in order to lock it after her.
It was not worry that caused him to tramp to and fro, frowning. Vona's demeanor of self-reliance had helped his feelings a great deal. But the corollary of devoted love is chivalry, and he felt that he was allowing her to do something that belonged to him to so, somehow. The policy which they had so sanely discussed did not seem to be such a comfortable course when he was alone, wondering what was going on across the corridor.
At last the sound of a door and the click of her heels signaled the end of the interview. He hoped that she would come back into the bank, making an excuse of something forgotten, in order to give him a soothing bulletin. He ran to the door and opened it. But the slam of the outside door informed him that she had gone on her way. Her prompt departure indicated that she was consistently pursuing the level-headed policy they had adopted; but the young man, impatient and wondering, was wishing she had taken a change, for once, even to the prejudice of policy. He shut his door and hurried to the window.
Though two men were watching her going-away, and though she must have been conscious of the fact, she did not turn her head to glance behind her.
At any rate, the thing was over, whatever had happened, the cashier reflected with relief. Nevertheless, curiosity was nagging at him; he felt an impulse to go in and inspect the condition of Tasper Britt by way of securing a hint.
Vaniman, however, shook his head and dropped into the routine of his duties. The ruts of life in Egypt, especially in the winter, were deep ones. The cashier had become contented with his little circle of occupation and recreation.
He carried the books into the vault. He wound the clock that controlled the mechanism of bolts and bars, and pushed the big outer door shut and made certain that it was secure.
Having finished as cashier, he became janitor.
Egypt had no electric lights. Vaniman trimmed the kerosene reflector lamp and set it on the table so that the front of the safe would be illuminated for the benefit of the village's night watchman.
Then he put on his cap and overcoat and locked the grille door and the bank door after he had passed each portal. His last chore of the day was always a trip into the basement to make sure that the dying fire in the wood furnace was carefully closed in for the night.
The basement stairs led from the rear of the corridor. When Vaniman returned up the stairs he had settled on a small matter of business which would serve as a valid excuse for entering the presence of President Britt. But he did not need to employ the excuse. Britt stood in his open door and called to the cashier and walked back to his chair, leaving Vaniman to follow, and the employee obeyed the summons with alacrity; he was consumed with desire to get a line on the situation that had been troubling him.
An observer would have called the contest of mutual inspection a fifty-fifty break—perhaps with a shade in favor of Britt, for the usurer's face was like leather and his goggling marbles of eyes under the lids that resembled little tents did not flicker.
“What can I do for you?” Britt demanded, and the query made for the young man's discomposure.
“Why, you called me in, sir!”
“Uh-huh!” the president admitted, “but somehow I had the impression that you said you wanted to see me after the bank closed.” He was taking account of stock of Vaniman's personality, his eyes going up and down the stalwart figure and dwelling finally and persistently on the young man's hair; it was copper-bronze in hue, it had an attractive wave, there was plenty of it, and it seemed to be very firmly rooted.
“I don't remember that I mentioned it, Mr. Britt, but I do have an errand with you.”
“All right! What is it?” Mr. Britt was not revealing any emotions that Vaniman found illuminating in regard to his particular quest.
“I am being tongue-lashed terribly through the wicket. Men won't believe that I'm obeying the orders of you and the board when accommodation is refused. Won't you take the matter off my hands—let me refer all to you?”
“I don't keep a dog and do my own barking,” rasped the president. He brought his eyes down from the young man's hair and noted that Vaniman stiffened and was displaying resentment.
“That's only a Yankee motto—you needn't take it as personal, Vaniman. I have turned over to you the running of the bank. I say to all that you're running it. You ought to feel pretty well set up!”
“I obey your orders, sir,” returned the cashier, not warming.
“That's all right for an understanding between us two. But I let the public think you're the whole thing. I tell 'em I've got full confidence in you. You don't want the public to think you're only a rubber stamp, do you?”
“The general opinion right now seems to be that I'm either a first-class liar or Shylock sentenced to a second term on earth,” retorted Vaniman, with bitterness.
There was a long silence in the room, where the early dusk was deepening. The two men regarded each other with expressions that did not soften.
After a time Britt turned to his desk, unlocked a compartment, and produced a letter, which he unfolded slowly, again staring hard at the cashier.
“Speaking of being sentenced!” There was something ominous in his drawl. “You told me a whole lot about yourself, Vaniman, when I was talking of hiring you. But there was one important thing you didn't mention—mighty important, seeing that you wanted a job as boss of a bank.” He tapped the open letter. “I've had this letter for a good many weeks, not saying anything about it to you or anybody else. I'm not sure just why I'm saying anything now.”
Vaniman flushed. His face worked with emotion. He put up his hand and started to speak, but Britt put up a more compelling hand and went on. “I reckon I'm bringing this matter up so that you'll know just where you stand—so that you'll mind your eye and look out for my interests in every way from now on—so that—” He hesitated a moment. His eyes flamed. “So that you'll know your place! That's it! Know your place—and be mighty careful how you go against me in anything—anything where I'm interested.” Britt had whipped himself into anger. That anger, fanned by a flame of jealousy after it had been touched off by his inspection of youth and good looks, had carried Mr. Britt far. He shook the letter at the young man. “There's a reliable name signed to this letter; he is a friend of mine, one of the big financiers in the city, and this was in the way of friendly warning.”
“I understand, Mr. Britt.” The cashier had recovered his self-possession. “You are warned that my father was sentenced to the penitentiary for embezzlement. No, I did not mention that to you. It concerned a man who is dead. It has nothing to do with my honesty.”
“Well, there's another motto about 'blood will tell,'” sneered Britt.
Vaniman stepped forward, honestly indignant, manfully resolute. “Let me tell you, sir, that the letter you hold there—no matter who wrote it—concerns a good man who is dead. He was the scapegoat of one of those big financiers.” Vaniman's lip curled. “My father was railroaded to jail on a track greased with lies—and died because the heart had been ripped out of him and—”
“Hold on! It won't get us anywhere to try that case all over, Vaniman. Let the letter stand as it is—it was probably meant in the right spirit. But I didn't write it. You and I better not fight over it. I've shown, by laying it away and saying nothing, that I have a decent nature in me. I hope I'll never have any need to take it out of this desk again.” He turned and shoved the paper back and locked the compartment.
“I think it is best for me to resign, Mr. Britt.”
“Don't be a fool, young man. Now that this thing is off our minds there's a better understanding between us than ever. I don't think—I hope”—he surveyed Vaniman with leisure in which there was the suggestion of a threat—“I'll never have any occasion to take that letter out again. Er—ah—” Britt joggled a watch charm and inquired, casually, “Would you plan on getting married if I boost your wages a little?”
In spite of an effort to control himself under Britt's basilisk stare, Vaniman showed how much the query had jumped him.
“Of course, a chap like you has had his sweetheart down in the city,” pursued the inquisitor when the young man failed to answer. “Must be one there now.”
“I have no sweetheart in the city, Mr. Britt.”
Then there was a longer silence in the room. The cashier was not enduring inspection with an air that did credit to his promise to keep a secret. Britt had made a breach in the wall of Vaniman's mental defense by the means of that letter and its implied accusation; Britt was taking advantage of that breach. Right then the young man was in a mood that would have prompted him to fling the truth and his defiance at Britt if the latter had kept on to the logical conclusion of his interrogation and had asked whether there was a sweetheart elsewhere; Vaniman had the feeling that by denying his love at that moment—to that man of all others—he would be dealing insult to Vona Harnden, as well as taking from her the protection that his affection gave her.
The attention of Britt was diverted from the quarry he was pursuing.
Outside Britt Block, Prophet Elias raised his voice in his regular “vesper service.” It was his practice, on his way to Usial Britt's cottage from his daily domiciliary visits, to halt in front of the bank and deliver a few texts. The first one—and the two men in the office listened—was of the general tenor of those addressed to “Pharaoh.” Said the Prophet, in resounding tones, “'As a roaring lion and a ranging bear, so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.'”
“Vaniman, go out and tell that old hoot owl to move on! I'm in a dangerous frame of mind to-day.” Britt's lips were pulled tightly against his yellow teeth.
The Prophet's next deliverance was more concretely to the point—indicating that the exhorter was not so much wrapped up in religion that he had no ear out for the political news current in Egypt that day, “'Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.'”
There was a fireplace in the office and Britt leaped to it and grabbed a poker. The cashier was moved to interfere, urged by two compelling motives. He wanted to get away from his own dangerous situation of the moment in that office—and he wanted to protect the old man outside from assault. “I'll attend to him, sir!” But he halted at the door and turned. “Mr. Britt, our talk has driven an important matter from my mind. The men who bellow at me through the wicket have considerable to say about our hoarding specie. It makes me uneasy to have that sort of gossip going the rounds.”
“We'll have the money out of here in a short time, Vaniman, as I have told you. That broker says that foreign money is going lower yet—and seeing that we've taken all this trouble to get the hard cash ready for the deal, we may as well make the clean-up as big as we can.”
“Don't you think we'd better hire a couple of good men with rifles and put 'em in the bank nights, sir?”
President Britt declared with scorn that the expense was not necessary, that putting guards in the bank would only start more talk, and that it also would be essential to hire old Ike Jones to sit in front of the vault and play all night on his trombone to keep awake any two men picked from Egypt. While Britt was expressing his opinion of inefficiency and expense, the Prophet was furnishing this obbligato outside, “'He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor.'”
Vaniman closed the door on Britt's objurgations.
The young man did not find it necessary to prevail upon the Prophet to give over his discourse. As soon as the emissary appeared Elias folded his ample umbrella, tucked it under his arm, gave Vaniman a friendly greeting, and winked at him. The twilight dimmed the seamed face and the young man wondered whether he had been mistaken about the sly suggestiveness of that wink.
“Joseph, how doth Pharaoh rest on his throne? Doth he sit easy?”
Always in their brief but good-natured interviews the evangelist called the young man “Joseph.” Elias took Vaniman's arm and walked along with him.
“I'm afraid, Prophet Elias, that you'll provoke Mr. Britt too far. Take my advice. Keep away from him for a time.”
“'There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yeah, four which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid,'” said the Prophet, placidly. “Furthermore, 'The proud have digged pits for me.' Joseph, the pitfalls encompass thee.”
Vaniman refrained from making a reply; the Prophet was displaying an embarrassing amount of sapience as to conditions.
In front of Usial Britt's cot they halted and the eccentric leaned close to Vaniman's ear. “Joseph, my son, keep thine eye peeled.” He released the cashier's arm and strode to the door of Usial's house.
Vaniman, delaying his departure, noted that the door did not give way when the Prophet wrenched at the knob. The guest banged his fist against a panel. “Let it be opened unto me!” he shouted.
His voice served as his guaranty; Usial Britt opened the door and slammed it shut so suddenly after the Prophet had entered that it was necessary to reopen the portal and release the tail of Elias's robe.
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