“You are a prig, and a beast, and a cruel creditor,” cried Rodie. “Not the kind for us in St. Rule’s: and good-night to you, and if you find nobody to play with to-morrow, you will just mind that you’ve chosen to put yourself against us, and it’s your own fault.”
Saying which, Rodie made a stride against the little garden gate which led to the Buchanan’s front door, flung it inwards with a clang, and disappeared under the shadow of the dark elder-tree which overshadowed the entrance.
It was not until that moment that Frank realised what the consequence might be of quarrelling with Elsie’s brother. He called after him, but Rodie was remorseless, and would not hear; and then the young man went home very sadly. Everybody knew that Rodie was Elsie’s favourite brother; she liked him better than all the rest. If Rodie asked anything of her, Elsie was sure to grant almost everything to his request: and Frank had been such a fool as to offend him! He could not think how he could have been so foolish as to do it. It was the act of a madman, he said to himself. What was a few hundreds, or even thousands in comparison with Elsie, even if he recovered his money? It would be no good to him if he had to sacrifice his love.
Frank was not a young man who despised either hundreds or thousands, and probably, later, if all went well with him, he might think himself a fool to sacrificing good money for any other consideration; but he certainly was not in this state of feeling now. Elsie and Rodie, and the Statute of Limitations, and the money that Uncle Anderson had strewed about broadcast, jumbled each other in his mind. What did it matter to him if he lost the favour of his love? and on the other hand the pity it would be to lose the money for want of asking for it, and knowing who the man was who had got it, and had not had the honesty to pay. He grew angrier and angrier at these people as he went along, seeing that in addition to this fundamental sin against him, they were also the cause of his quarrel with Rodie, and terrible dismissal by Elsie. The cads! to hold their tongues and conceal who they were, when it was a debt of honour; and to trust in such a poor defence as a Statute of Limitations, and to part him from the girl he loved. He had been more curious than eager before, thinking besides the natural feeling one has not to be robbed, and to recover at all hazard that which is one’s own, however wicked people should endeavour to cheat one out of it--that it would be fun to break through the secret pretences of those people, and force them to disgorge the money they had unlawfully obtained; but now Frank began to have a personal animosity against those defaulters, as his mother called them, who not only had cheated him of his money, but had made him to quarrel with Rodie, and perhaps with Rodie’s sister. Confound them! they should not be let off now. He would find them, though all the world united in concealing them. He would teach them to take away his inheritance, and interfere between him and his love! It was with these sentiments hot in his heart that he hastened home.