When they lifted their eyes from each other again it was half-past ten.
"No' you most go," she said.
"But the colonel--our fate?"
"The co'nel is often oat late, and Ah'm not afraid of ouah fate, no' that
we've taken it into ouah own hands." She looked at him with dewy eyes of
trust, of inspiration.
"Oh, it's going to come out all right," he said. "It can't come out wrong
now, no matter what happens. But who'd have thought it, when I came into
this house, in such a state of sin and misery, half an hour ago--"
"Three houahs and a half ago!" she said. "No! you most jost go. Ah'm
tahed to death. Good-night. You can come in the mawning to see--papa." She
opened the door and pushed him out with enrapturing violence, and he ran
laughing down the steps into her father's arms.
"Why, colonel! I was just going up to meet you." He had really thought he
would walk off his exultation in that direction.
"I am very sorry to say, Mr. Fulkerson," the colonel began, gravely,
"that Mr. Dryfoos adheres to his position."
"Oh, all right," said Fulkerson, with unabated joy. "It's what I
expected. Well, my course is clear; I shall stand by March, and I guess
the world won't come to an end if he bounces us both. But I'm
everlastingly obliged to you, Colonel Woodburn, and I don't know what to
say to you. I--I won't detain you now; it's so late. I'll see you in the
morning. Good-ni--"
Fulkerson did not realize that it takes two to part. The colonel laid
hold of his arm and turned away with him. "I will walk toward your place
with you. I can understand why you should be anxious to know the
particulars of my interview with Mr. Dryfoos"; and in the statement which
followed he did not spare him the smallest. It outlasted their walk and
detained them long on the steps of the 'Every Other Week' building. But
at the end Fulkerson let himself in with his key as light of heart as if
he had been listening to the gayest promises that fortune could make.
By the time he met March at the office next morning, a little, but only a
very little, misgiving saddened his golden heaven. He took March's hand
with high courage, and said, "Well, the old man sticks to his point,
March." He added, with the sense of saying it before Miss Woodburn: "And
I stick by you. I've thought it all over, and I'd rather be right with
you than wrong with him."
"Well, I appreciate your motive, Fulkerson," said March. "But
perhaps--perhaps we can save over our heroics for another occasion.
Lindau seems to have got in with his, for the present."
He told him of Lindau's last visit, and they stood a moment looking at
each other rather queerly. Fulkerson was the first to recover his
spirits. "Well," he said, cheerily, "that let's us out."
"Does it? I'm not sure it lets me out," said March; but he said this in
tribute to his crippled self-respect rather than as a forecast of any
action in the matter.
"Why, what are you going to do?" Fulkerson asked. "If Lindau won't work
for Dryfoos, you can't make him."
March sighed. "What are you going to do with this money?" He glanced at
the heap of bills he had flung on the table between them.
Fulkerson scratched his head. "Ah, dogged if I know: Can't we give it to
the deserving poor, somehow, if we can find 'em?"
"I suppose we've no right to use it in any way. You must give it to
Dryfoos."
"To the deserving rich? Well, you can always find them. I reckon you
don't want to appear in the transaction! I don't, either; but I guess I
must." Fulkerson gathered up the money and carried it to Conrad. He
directed him to account for it in his books as conscience-money, and he
enjoyed the joke more than Conrad seemed to do when he was told where it
came from.
Fulkerson was able to wear off the disagreeable impression the affair
left during the course of the fore-noon, and he met Miss Woodburn with
all a lover's buoyancy when he went to lunch. She was as happy as he when
he told her how fortunately the whole thing had ended, and he took her
view that it was a reward of his courage in having dared the worst. They
both felt, as the newly plighted always do, that they were in the best
relations with the beneficent powers, and that their felicity had been
especially looked to in the disposition of events. They were in a glow of
rapturous content with themselves and radiant worship of each other; she
was sure that he merited the bright future opening to them both, as much
as if he owed it directly to some noble action of his own; he felt that
he was indebted for the favor of Heaven entirely to the still incredible
accident of her preference of him over other men.
Colonel Woodburn, who was not yet in the secret of their love, perhaps
failed for this reason to share their satisfaction with a result so
unexpectedly brought about. The blessing on their hopes seemed to his
ignorance to involve certain sacrifices of personal feeling at which he
hinted in suggesting that Dryfoos should now be asked to make some
abstract concessions and acknowledgments; his daughter hastened to deny
that these were at all necessary; and Fulkerson easily explained why. The
thing was over; what was the use of opening it up again?
"Perhaps none," the colonel admitted. But he added, "I should like the
opportunity of taking Mr. Lindau's hand in the presence of Mr. Dryfoos
and assuring him that I considered him a man of principle and a man of
honor--a gentleman, sir, whom I was proud and happy to have known."
"Well, Ah've no doabt," said his daughter, demurely, "that you'll have
the chance some day; and we would all lahke to join you. But at the same
tahme, Ah think Mr. Fulkerson is well oat of it fo' the present."