"He said that he would--under certain conditions." McElwin winced in
memory of his and Sawyer's visit to Lyman.

"Conditions? How does he dare enforce conditions? What were they?"

"That I must avow my love for Zeb--Mr. Sawyer."

"Well, is that all?"

"All! Isn't it enough?"

"You can do that, my daughter," Mrs. McElwin said meekly.

"Yes, I could, if the time should ever come."

"What time?" the banker asked.

"The time when I can say that I love him."

McElwin crossed his legs with a sudden flounce. "You put too serious
an estimate upon love," he said. "You expect it to be the grand,
over-mastering passion we read about. That was all well enough for the
age of poetry, but this is the age of prose. You can go to that man
and tell him that--"

"That I have a Nineteenth century love for Mr. Sawyer," she
interrupted.

"Well, yes."

"And he would laugh at me."

"Laugh at you," he frowned. "No gentleman can laugh at a lady's
distress."

"But he might not regard it as distress. It might seem ridiculous to
him."

"Hump," he grunted. "Well, it's undignified, it is almost outrageous
to be forced to do such a thing, but you must go to him. Your mother
will go with you."

"No, James," his wife gently protested, looking at him in mild appeal.
"I don't really think I can muster the courage for so awkward an
undertaking. Please leave me out."

"Leave you out of so important an arrangement, an arrangement that
involves the future of your daughter!"

"Then, why should not all three of us go?" she asked.

"I have trampled my own pride under my feet by going once," he
replied. "Yes, and he treated me with cool impudence. And if I should
go again something might happen. That man has humiliated me more than
any man I ever met, and once is enough; I couldn't bear an insult in
the presence of my wife and daughter. Eva, do you know what that man
tried to do? He gained admission to my private office, and actually
strove to bunco me out of a hundred dollars."

"He may have tried to borrow it, father, but I don't think he tried to
get it dishonestly."

"Didn't I tell you that he tried to beat me out of the money? Why do
you set up a mere opinion against my experience? And why are you so
much inclined to take his part? Tell me that. You can't be interested
in him?"

"I don't want injustice done him."

"Oh, no; but you would submit to the injustice he does you. He has
robbed you of the society of your younger acqu