Her forehead wrinkled again. “I know, Vona! Britt's attentions! I'll take it on myself--” “No,” she broke in, with dignity. “I must make that my own affair. It can be easily settled. It's pure folly on his part. I'll make him understand it when I talk with him this afternoon.” “But I'll feel like a coward,” he protested, passionately. She put up her hand and smiled. “You're not a coward, dear! Nor am I a hypocrite. We're just two poor toilers who must do the best we can till the clouds clear away.” She went to him, and when her hands caressed his cheeks he bent down and kissed her. Then they applied themselves to their tasks in Mr. Britt's bank. CHAPTER IV THE ACHE OF RAPPED KNUCKLES Landlord Files set forth a boiled dinner that day; he skinched on corned beef and made up on cabbage; but he economized on fuel, and the cabbage was underdone. Mr. Britt, back in his office, allowing his various affairs to be digested--his dinner, his political project, the valentine--his hopes in general--found that soggy cabbage to be a particularly tough proposition. He was not sufficiently imaginative to view his punishment by the intractable cabbage as a premonitory hint that he was destined to suffer as much in his pride as he did in his stomach. His pangs took his mind off the other affairs. He was pallid and his lips were blue when Emissary Orne came waddling into the office. Mr. Orne, in addition to other characteristics that suggested a fowl, had a sagging dewlap, and the February nip had colored it into resemblance to a rooster's wattles. When he came in Mr. Orne's face was sagging, in general. It was a countenance that was already ridged into an expression of sympathy. When he set eyes on Britt the expression of woe was touched up with alarm. But that the alarm had to do with the personal affairs of Mr. Orne was shown when he inquired apprehensively whether Mr. Britt would settle then and there for the day's work. The candidate looked up at the office timepiece. “It ain't three o'clock. I don't call it a day.” “You call it a day in banking. I've got the same right to call it a day in politics.” “What infernal notion is afoul of you, Orne, grabbing for my money before you report?” “I do business with a man according to his own rules--and then he's suited, or ought to be. You collect sharp on the dot after service has been rendered. So do I.” Mr. Orne was displaying more acute nervous apprehension. “And the understanding was that you'd leave it to me as your manager, and wouldn't go banging around, yourself.” Britt found the agent's manner puzzling. “I haven't been out of this office, except to go to my dinner. I haven't talked politics with anybody.” “Oh!” remarked Orne, showing relief. “Perhaps, then, it was the way the light fell on your face.” He peered closely at his client. Mr. Britt's color was coming back. Orne's cryptic speeches and his haste to collect had warmed the banker's wrath. “It'll be ten dollars, as we agreed.”