Gordon paid Valentine Simmons eighty-nine thousand dollars for the
latter's share of the timber options they had held in common. They were
seated in the room in which Gordon conducted his peculiar transactions. He
turned and placed Simmons' acknowledgment, the various papers of the
dissolved partnership, in the safe.
"That finishes all I had in Stenton," he observed.
Valentine Simmons made no immediate reply. He was intent, with
tightly-folded lips, on the cheque in his hand. His shirt, as ever, was
immaculately starched, the blue button was childlike, bland; but it was
cold without, and hot in the room where they sat, and the color on his
cheeks resembled dabs of vermilion on buffers of old white leather; the
tufts of hair above his ears had dwindled to mere cottony scraps.
"Prompt and satisfactory," he said at last. "I tell you, Gordon, you can
see as far as another into a transaction. Promises are of no account but
value received ..." he held up the cheque, a strip of pale orange paper,
pinched between withered fingers.
Suddenly he was in a hurry to get away; he drew his overcoat of
close-haired, brown hide about his narrow shoulders, and trotted to the
door, to his buggy awaiting him at the corner of the porch.