Then he left her and went into the hall, John Barrett close on his heels. The millionaire watched him take his hat, followed him out upon the broad porch, and halted him at the edge of the steps.
"Mr. Wade," he said, "you'd rather resign your position than be kicked out, I presume?"
"You mean that it is your wish that I should go away from Stillwater?"
"That is exactly what I mean. You resign, or I will have your resignation demanded by the school board."
"I think my school relations are entirely my own business," retorted the young man, fighting back his mounting wrath.
"I'll make it mine, and have you kicked out of this town like a cur."
Wade remembered at that instant the face of the man whom he had seen leave John Barrett's office that morning. He recollected his words--"I'd relish bein' the man that mistook him for a bear!" He knew now how that man felt. And feeling the lust of killing rise in his own soul for the first time, he clinched his fists, set his teeth, and strode away into the night.
"We're bound for the choppin's at Chamberlain Lake, And we're lookin' for trouble and suthin' to take. We reckon we'll manage this end of the train, And we'll leave a red streak up the centre of Maine."
A company of reserves posted in a thicket, after valiantly withstanding the hammering of a battery, were suddenly routed by wasps. They broke and ran like the veriest knaves.
Dwight Wade had determined to face John Barrett's battery of persecution. But at the end of a week he realized that the little city of Stillwater was looking askance at him. He knew that gossip attended his steps and stood ever at his shoulders, as one from the tail of the eye sees shadowy visions and, turning suddenly, finds them gone.
That John Barrett would deliberately start stories in which his daughter's affairs were concerned seemed incredible to the lover who, for the sake of her fair fame and her peace of mind, had resolved to make fetish of duty, realizing even better than she herself that Elva Barrett's sense of justice would weigh well her duties as daughter before she could be won to the duties of wife.
Yet Wade could hardly tell why he determined to stay in Stillwater. He wanted to console himself with the belief that a sudden departure would give gossip the proof it wanted. For gossip, as he caught its vague whispers, said that John Barrett had kicked--actually and violently kicked--the principal of the Stillwater high-school out of his mansion. Wade did not like to think that Barrett, by himself or a servant, started that story. Yet the thought made Wade suspect that the bitterness of the night at "Oaklands" still rankled, and that he was remaining in Stillwater for the sake of defying John Barrett, and was not simply crucifying his spirit for the sake of the peace of John Barrett's daughter.