“Good-by!”
“Jonas, put him out!” screamed Mrs. Anderson.
“Couldn’t do it,” said Jonas, “couldn’t do it ef I tried. They’s too much bone and sinnoo in them arms of his’n, and moreover he’s a gentleman. I axed him to come and see me sometime, and he come. He come ruther late it’s true, but I s’pose he thought that sence we got sech a dee-splay of watch-seals and straps we had all got so stuck up, we wouldn’t receive calls afore fashionable hours. Any way, I ’low he didn’t mean no harm, and he’s my visitor, seein’ he meant to come into my winder, knowin’ the door was closed agin him. And he won’t let no man put him out, ’thout he’s a man with more’n half a dozen watch-seals onto him, to give him weight and influence.”
“Samuel, will you see me insulted in this way? Will you put this burglar out of the house?”
The “head of the house,” thus appealed to, tried to look important; he tried to swell up his size and his courage. But he did not dare touch August.
“Mr. Anderson, I beg your pardon. I had no right to come In as I did. I had no right so to enter a gentleman’s house. If I had not known that this cowardly fop—I don’t know what else he may be—was injuring me by his lies I should not have come in. If it is a crime to love a young lady, then I have committed a crime. You have only to exercise your authority as master of this house and ask me to go.”
“I do ask you to go, Mr. Wehle.”
It was the first time that Samuel Anderson had ever called him Mr. Wehle. It was an involuntary tribute to the dignity of the young man, as he stood at bay. “Mr. Wehle, indeed!” said Mrs. Anderson.
August had hoped Julia would say a word in his behalf. But she was too much, cowed by her mother’s fierce passion. So like a criminal going to prison, like a man going to his own funeral, August Wehle went down the hall toward the stairs, which were at the back of it. Humphreys instinctively retreated into his room. Mrs. Anderson glared on the young man as he went by, but he did not turn his head even when he passed Julia. His heart and hope were all gone; in his mortification and defeat there seemed to him nothing left but his unbroken pride to sustain him. He had descended two or three steps, when Julia suddenly glided forward and said with a tremulous voice: “You aren’t going without telling me good-by, August?”
“Jule Anderson! what do you mean?” cried her mother. But the hall was narrow by the stairway, and Jonas, by standing close to Cynthy Ann, in an unconscious sort of a way managed to keep Mrs. Anderson back; else she would have laid violent hands on her daughter.
When August lifted his eyes and saw her face full of tenderness and her hand reached over the balusters to him, he seemed to have been suddenly lifted from perdition to bliss. The tears ran unrestrained upon his cheeks, he reached up and took her hand.
“Good-by, Jule! God bless you!” he said huskily, and went out into the night, happy in spite of all.