Chapter XVIII The Encounter
Just before August came out of the door of Julia’s room he had heard Humphreys enter his room on the opposite side of the hall. Humphreys had lighted his cigar and was on his way to the porch to smoke off his discomfiture when he met August coming out of Julia’s door on the opposite side of the hall. The candle in Humphreys’s room threw its light full on August’s face, there was no escape from recognition, and Wehle was too proud to retreat. He shut the door of Julia’s room and stood with back against the wall staring at Humphreys, who did not forget to smile in his most aggravating way.
“Thief! thief!” called Humphreys.
In a moment Mrs. Anderson and Julia ran up the stairs, followed by Mr. Anderson, who hearing the outcry had left the matter of the Apocalypse unsettled, and by Jonas and Cynthy Ann, who had just arrived.
“I knew it,” cried Mrs. Anderson, turning on the mortified Julia, “I never knew a Dutchman nor a foreigner of any sort that wouldn’t steal. Now you see what you get by taking a fancy to a Dutchman. And now you see”—to her husband—“what you get by taking a Dutchman into your house. I always wanted you to hire white men and not Dutchmen nor thieves!”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Anderson,” said August, with very white lips, “I am not a thief.”
“Not a thief, eh? What was he doing, Mr. Humphreys, when you first detected him?”
“Coming out of Miss Anderson’s room,” said Humphreys, smiling politely.
“Do you invite gentlemen to your room?” said the frantic woman to Julia, meaning by one blow to revenge herself and crush the stubbornness of her daughter forever. But Julia was too anxious about August to notice the shameless insult.
“Mrs. Anderson, this visit is without any invitation from Julia. I did wrong to enter your house in this way, but I only am responsible, and I meant to enter Jonas’s room. I did not know that Julia occupied this room. I am to blame, she is not.”
“And what did you break in for if you didn’t mean to steal? It is all off between you and Jule, for I saw your letter. I shall have you arrested to-morrow for burglary. And I think you ought to be searched. Mr. Humphreys, won’t you put him out?”
Humphreys stopped forward toward August, but he noticed that the latter had a hard look in his eyes, and had two stout German fists shut very tight. He turned back.
“These thieves are nearly always armed. I think I had best get a pistol out of my trunk.”
“I have no arms, and you know it, coward,” said August. “I will not be put out by anybody, but I will go out whenever the master of this house asks me to go out, and the rest of you open a free path.”