"Father," I said, "I'm going away, too. I may never come back, and for my own sake I want to assure you of one thing: no matter what Tillhurst may say, if Rachel Melrose were ten times more handsome, if she had in her own name a fortune such as I can never hope to acquire myself, she would mean nothing to me. I care nothing for the stories now"--a hopelessness would come into my voice--"but I do not care for her either. I never did, and I never could."
My eyes were away on Burnett's Mound, and the sweet remembrance of Marjie's last affectionate look made a blur before them. We stood in silence for some time.
"Phil," said John Baronet in a deep, fervent tone, "I have a matter I meant to take up later, but this is a good time. Let the young folks go now. This is a family matter. Years ago a friend of the older Baronets died in the East leaving some property that should sooner or later come to me to keep in trust for you. This time was to be at the death of the man and his wife who had the property for their lifetime. Philip, you have been accused by the Conlow-Judson crowd of wanting a rich wife. I also am called grasping by Tell Mapleson's class. And," he smiled a little, "indeed, Iago's advice to Roderigo, 'Put money in thy purse,' was sound philosophy if the putting be honestly done. But this little property in the East that should come to you is in the hands of a man who is now ill, probably in his last sickness. He has one child that will have nothing else left to her. Shall we take this money at her father's death?"
"Why, father, no. I don't want it. Do you want it?"
I knew him too well to ask the question. Had I not seen the unselfish, kindly, generous spirit that had marked all his business career? Springvale never called him grasping, save as his prosperity grated on men of Mapleson's type.
"Will you sign a relinquishment to your claim, and trust to me that it is the best for us to do?" he asked.
"Just as soon as we get to an inkstand," I answered. Nor did I ever hold that such a relinquishment is anything but Christian opportunity.
That evening I said good-bye to my father, and when I saw him again it was after I had gone through the greatest crisis of these sixty years. On the same train that bore my father to the East were his friend Morton and his political and professional antagonist, Tell Mapleson. The next day I enlisted in Troop A of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, and was quartered temporarily in the State House, north of Fifth Street, on Kansas Avenue. Tillhurst was not admitted to the regiment, as my father had predicted. Neither was Jim Conlow, who had come up to Topeka for that purpose. Good-natured, shallow-pated "Possum," no matter where he found work to do, he sooner or later drifted back to Springvale to his father's forge. He did not realize that no Conlow of the Missouri breed ought ever to try anything above a horse's hoofs, in cavalry matters. The Lord made some men to shoe horses, and some to ride them. The Conlows weren't riders, and Jim's line was turned again to his father's smithy.