"But when those plans put a crimp into _my_ plans--and me a steady customer--I'm opening my mouth to ask questions."

"You--and all other stockholders--will be fully informed by the annual report--and will be pleased." Britt's air was one of finality.

"Let me tell you that the mouth I have opened to ask questions will stay open in regard to h.o.a.rding that specie where it ain't drawing interest."

Britt jumped up and shook his fist under Stickney's snub nose. "Don't you dare to go blabbing around the country! You might as well set off a bomb under our bank as to circulate news that will attract robbers."

"Bomb? Britt, I'm safe when I'm handled right, but if I'm handled wrong--" Stickney did not finish his sentence; but his truculent air was pregnant with suggestion.

"Do you think you can blackmail me or this bank into making an exception in your case against our present policy? Go ahead and talk, Stickney, and I'll post the people of this town on your selfish tactics--and you'll see where you get off!"

Stickney did not argue the matter further. He looked like a man who was disgusted because he had wasted so much time trying to get around a Tasper Britt stony "No!" He picked up his papers, stamped out, and slammed the door.

Britt shook himself, like a spiritualist medium trying to induce the trance state, and went back to his writing.

After a time a dull, thrumming sound attracted his attention. It was something like Files's dinner gong, whose summons Mr. Britt was wont to obey on the instant.

Mr. Britt was certain that it was not the gong; however, he glanced up at the clock on the wall, then he leaped out of his chair. In his amazement he rapped out, "Well, I'll be--"

That clock was reliable; it marked the hour of twelve.

Mr. Britt had received convincing evidence that the rhapsody of composition makes morsels of hours and gulps days in two bites.

But he had completed five stanzas. He concluded that they would do, though he had planned on five more. Glancing over his composition, he decided that it might be better to leave the matter a bit vague, just as the poem left it at the end of the fifth stanza. In the corridor that morning Vona had shown that too much precipitateness alarmed her; he might go too far in five more stanzas. The five he had completed would give her a hint--something to think of. He pondered on that point while he stuck the paper into an envelope and sealed it.

Mr. Britt hurried the rest of his movements; Files's kitchen conveniences were archaic, and the guest who was not on time got cold viands.

The lover who had begun to stir Miss Harnden's thoughts into rather unpleasant roiliness of doubts came hustling into the bank, hat and coat on.

The girl and young Vaniman were spreading their respective lunches on the center table inside the grille.

Britt called Vona to the wicket. He slipped the envelope through to her.

"There's no hurry, you understand! Take your time. Read it in a slack moment--later! And"--he hesitated and gulped--"I want to see you after bank hours. If you'll step in--I'll be much obliged."

She did not a.s.sent orally, nor show especial willingness to respond to his invitation. She took the envelope and turned toward the table after Britt had left the wicket.

She walked to the window and gazed at the retreating back of Mr. Britt, and put the envelope into a velvet bag that was attached by slender chains to her girdle.

When she faced Vaniman, the young cashier was regarding her archly.

"I wonder if congratulations are in order," he suggested.

Her quick flush was followed by a pallor that gave her an appearance of anger. "I don't relish that sort of humor."

"My gracious, Vona, I wasn't trying to be especially humorous," he protested, staring at her so ingenuously that his candor could not be questioned. "I reckoned that the boss was raising your pay, and was being a bit sly about it! What else can it be?"

Then she was truly disconcerted; at a loss for a reply; ashamed of her display of emotion.

He stared hard at her. His face began to show that he was struggling with an emotion of his own. "Vona," he faltered, after a time, "I haven't any right to ask you--but do you have any--is that paper--"

He was unable to go on under the straight and strange gaze she leveled at him. She was plainly one who was taking counsel with herself. She came to a sudden decision, and drew forth the envelope and tore it open, unfolded the paper, and began to read.

When her eyes were not on him Vaniman revealed much of what a discerning person would have known to be love; love that had been pursuing its way quietly, but was now alarmed and up in arms. He narrowed his eyes and studied her face while she read. But she did not reveal what she thought and he became more perturbed. She finished and looked across at him and then she narrowed her eyes to match his expression. Suddenly she leaned forward and gave him the paper. He read it, amazement lifting his eyebrows.

When he met her stare again they were moved by a common impulse--mirth; mirth that was born out of their mutual amazement and was baptized by the tears that their merriment squeezed from their eyes.

"I am not laughing at Tasper Britt," he gasped, checking his hilarity.

"I would not laugh at any man who falls in love with you, Vona. I am laughing at the idea of Tasper Britt writing poetry. Let me look out of the window! Has Burkett Hill tipped over? Has the sun turned in the heavens at high noon and started back to the east?"

"What does it mean?" she asked. Her expression excused the ba.n.a.lity of her query; her eyes told him that she knew, but her ears awaited his indors.e.m.e.nt of her woman's conviction.

He pointed to the big calendar on the wall. "It's a valentine," he said, gravely. But the twinkle reappeared in his eyes when he added, "And valentines have always been used for prefaces in the volume of Love."

She did not reflect any of his amus.e.m.e.nt. She clasped her hands and gazed down on them, and her forehead was wrinkled with honest distress.

"Of course, you have sort of been guessing," he ventured. "All the renovating process--the way he has been tiptoeing around and squinting at you!"

She looked up suddenly and caught his gaze; his tone had been hard, but his eyes were tender.

Then it happened!

They had been hiding their deeper feelings under the thin coating of comradeship for a long time. As in the instance of other pent-up explosives, only the right kind of a jar was needed to "trip" the ma.s.s.

The threat of a rival--even of such a preposterous rival as Tasper Britt--served as detonator in the case of Frank Vaniman, and the explosion of his emotions produced sympathetic results in the girl across the table from him. He leaped up, strode around to her and put out his arms, and she rushed into the embrace he offered.

But their mutual consolations were denied them--he was obliged to dam back his choking speech and she her blessed tears.

A depositor came stamping in.

They were calm, with their customary check on emotions, when they were free to talk after the man had gone away.

"Vona, I did not mean to speak out to you so soon," he told her. "Not but what it was in here"--he patted his breast--"and fairly boiling all the time!"

She a.s.sured him, with a timid look, that her own emotions had not been different from his.

"But I have respected your obligations," he went on, with earnest candor. "And this is the first real job I've ever had. It's best to be honest with each other."

She agreed fervently.

"I wish we could be just as honest with Britt. But we both know what kind of a man he is. The sentiment of 'Love, and the world well lost' is better in a book than it is in this bank just now, as matters stand with us. I have had so many hard knocks in life that I know what they mean, and I want to save you from them. Isn't it best to go along as we are for a little while, till I can see my way to get my feet placed somewhere else?"

"We must do so, Frank--for the time being." Her candor matched his. "I do need this employment for the sake of my folks. Both of us must be fair to ourselves--not silly. Only--"

Her forehead wrinkled again.

"I know, Vona! Britt's attentions! I'll take it on myself--"

"No," she broke in, with dignity. "I must make that my own affair.