“These cancelled notes would make Mahala a fine wedding present from me, now wouldn’t they, Mahlon?” Terrified, Mr. Spellman started to protest. Then the smile vanished from the banker’s face. He ceased to be like a cat and became like the bronze dogs again. He straightened up in his chair. He slipped a rubber around the notes with a snap, put them back in the drawer which he locked with great deliberation; then, in a dry, hard voice, he said: “Mahlon, between men, business is business. I’m not overlooking the advantage to me of this union between your daughter and my son. Mahala is a smart girl and a pretty girl, and capable of being the kind of wife that her mother is, and I’d prefer her about ten thousand times to some girl that Junior might pick up in a minute of pique and marry, without giving consequences due consideration. That’s where the shoe pinches me. I don’t hesitate to admit it. This bunch of notes is where the same shoe pinches you. You go home and talk this over with your wife, then your daughter—with your wife especially. Elizabeth’s got the sense to see the point to things; especially if you explain to her the present condition of your business. As for the girl, no chit of Mahala’s age is supposed to know her own mind.” For the rest of that day Mahlon Spellman walked in a daze. In order to escape being seen by his clerks, he carried home an armload of books and papers, and going to his library, he plunged into them only to realize that by evading unpleasant things and putting them aside and living for the moment, he had also evaded the knowledge of how deeply he had been putting himself in the power of the Senior Moreland. At his moment of deepest despair, Mahala came into the room, her arms heaped with catalogues from girls’ schools. She pushed the ledgers and business papers aside, and spreading the catalogues out in front of him, made a place for herself on the table facing him. After kissing him, she began holding the catalogues before him. “Forget your bothersome old bookkeeping, Father!” she cried. “Come help me to decide which is the very nicest college for me to attend. I must make my reservations as soon as possible.” Then she had a comprehensive look at her father’s face and knew fear herself. With the candour constantly controlling her, she cried: “Father, dear, forgive me! I didn’t know you were at important business. We can select my college some other time.”