Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/306

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THE STEADFAST HEART

ask him to step into my office…. No matter what he wants, don’t give it to him until I have seen him.”

“All right,” Gene said, and paused. “Say, I wonder when they’re goin’ to begin on the manufacturin’ company. I’ve got a hundred dollars into it.” He said this proudly, with the air of an investor. “I guess ’most everybody in Rainbow’s got somethin’ into it…. We’re all goin’ to make money. Sure.”

“I hope so,” said Angus.

“Have you got anythin’ into it?”

“Yes, Gene, a little,” said Angus, and returned to his office to wait…. An hour later, summoned to the office by a customer, he glanced casually through the window and saw young Mal Crane passing, suit case in hand. Angus wondered vaguely what the young man was doing at home, and decided, with a twinge, that he had come to spend Sunday with Lydia….

Shortly after noon Judge Crane entered the bank. His face was gray and drawn; his eyes glittered with an unpleasant, unnatural light, and his hands twitched nervously at his sides. There was something furtive about the man, something of the fugitive. He seemed strangely interested in what went on behind his back, for he persisted in turning every now and then to look. As he approached the teller’s window he drew himself

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