could with the greatest difficulty conceal. For one wild moment he
had thought of calling her back while he made a personal appeal to
Revelstoke; but the conviction borne in upon him by her resolute bearing
that she would refuse it, and he would only lay himself open to another
rebuff, held him to his seat. Yet he could not entirely repress his
youthful indignation.
"Where I come from," he said in an audible voice to his neighbor, "a
young lady like that would have been spared this public disappointment.
A dozen men would have made up that sum and let her go without knowing
anything about her account being overdrawn." And he really believed it.
"Nice, comf'able way of doing banking business in Dutch Flat," returned
the cynic. "And I suppose you'd have kept it up every month? Rather
a tall price to pay for looking at a pretty girl once a month! But I
suppose they're scarcer up there than here. All the same, it ain't too
late now. Start up your subscription right here, sonny, and we'll all
ante up."
But Randolph, who seldom followed his heroics to their ultimate prosaic
conclusions, regretted he had spoken, although still unconvinced.
Happily for his temper, he did not hear the comment of the two tellers.
"Won't see HER again, old boy," said one.
"I reckon not," returned the other, "now that she's been chucked by her
fancy man--until she gets another. But cheer up; a girl like that won't
want friends long."
It is not probable that either of these young gentlemen believed what
they said, or would have been personally disrespectful or uncivil to any
woman; they were fairly decent young fellows, but the rigors of business
demanded this appearance of worldly wisdom between themselves. Meantime,
for a week after, Randolph indulged in wild fancies of taking his
benefactor's capital of seventy dollars, adding thirty to it from his
own hard-earned savings, buying a draft with it from the bank for one
hundred dollars, and in some mysterious way getting it to Miss Avondale
as the delayed remittance.
The brief wet winter was nearly spent; the long dry season was due,
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