Go on! I'll tend bank."

When Frank returned with Vona a half hour later the president beamed on
them through the wicket. He immediately left the bank office, giving the
bookkeeper a paternal pat on the shoulder as he passed her, calling her
a good girl. And then the business of the Egypt Trust Company settled
back into its usual routine.

During the day customers came to the wicket with notes sanctioned by the
president's O. K. and his sprawling initials; Mr. Britt did not trouble
himself by consulting the directors in regard to ordinary loans. He was
well settled in his autocracy by virtue of the voting proxies which he
handled for stockholders, although he had only a modest amount of his
own money invested in the stock of the bank. Mr. Britt could use his own
money to better advantage. He was permitted to make a one-man bank
of the Trust Company because nobody in Egypt ventured to dispute his
sapience as a financier.

The customers who came that day were plainly having a hard time of it
in controlling their desire to share some of their emotions with
the cashier. But Vaniman's stolid countenance did not encourage any
confidences.

Some of the repression he exercised in the case of customers extended
to his communion with Vona during the slack times of the business day.
There seemed to be a tacit agreement between them to keep off the topic
of what had happened the night before. Words could not have added to
their understanding of their mutual feelings. That understanding had
established for them the policy of waiting. Though Frank said but little
to the girl about his talk with the president, he imagined he could feel
the tingle of Britt's handclasp as he remembered the look on Britt's
face, and he pitied the old man. To go on, seizing every opportunity to
make love, would seem like "rubbing it in," Frank told himself. He
also said something of the sort to Vona, and she agreed with an amiable
smile.

And the two of them agreed on one thing, more especially: Tasper Britt
must have had a strange housecleaning of the heart during that vigil in
his home on the hill.

Among other convincing evidences of Britt's transformation was his
treatment of Prophet Elias at the end of that day.

The Prophet did not deliver his usual matutinal taunts in front of
Britt Block. But when he came back from the field in the afternoon, he
returned from conferences with Egyptian skeptics who had not seen Tasper
Britt in his new form