Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/115

Rh "Oh," he said, as he moved toward the door, "there 's something in the name of Ramsay Reed yet. But not enough," he added, laughing with a mischievous appreciation of the humor of his misfortunes, "to let a grocery bill run on indefinitely. There was a day when my name was good for any length of time—but that was thirty years ago."

Then he left, smiling and happy, and on the way home bought a pot of pâté de foie gras, a bottle of claret, and a handkerchief with an embroidered edge for Viola. At the grocery store on the corner of the street where he lived he stopped and paid twenty dollars on his bill, and then fared up the street with rapid strides, all agog with pleasure at the thought of Viola's delight in his present, and the jolly little supper they would have on the end of the kitchen table.

The man who had made these innocent pleasures possible was far from enjoying those sensations of gratification said to be experienced by a cheerful giver.

He had begun to know very dark hours. His first great love, come tardily and reluctantly, at an age when the heart is almost closed to soft influences and the mind is hardened with much worldly contact, had come poisoned with torturing suspicions, with shame for his own weakness, with fears of the truth.