Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/56

44 When he had gone, Gault went to the window of the outer office and stood there watching him. The faded old hat, shadowing the fringe of white hair, towered over the heads of the hurrying men who passed in two streams up and down the street.

Gault stood gazing till the tall figure passed out of sight. When he turned back from the window his clerks noticed that he looked moodily preoccupied.

Five days after this the colonel appeared again. He was urbane, affable, and easy as an old shoe, and, with the air of a king honoring a faithful servant, borrowed thirty dollars more.

This was on Saturday. On Sunday afternoon Gault, who had passed a restless night, resolved to escape from the irritation of his own thoughts and seek amusement in the society of Letitia. For this purpose he took an early lunch at his club, and by two o'clock was wending his way up the sunlit streets that run between large houses and blooming gardens through what is known as the Western Addition.

For the past six years it had been an open secret in that small family circle that Mortimer Gault and his wife wished to make a marriage between John and Letitia. Certainly it was a neat combination of the family relationships and properties that might have suggested itself