we'd patiently bear
everything, I suppose, to make it come out right. We aren't up high
enough to get the whole view of the finished plan, so of course lots of
things look like mistakes. But if we trust Him at all, we know they
aren't. And some time, I suppose, we'll see the whole and then we'll
understand why it was. But I never was one to do much fretting because I
didn't understand. I always know what my job is, and that's enough. I'm
content to trust the rest to God. It's a God-size job to run the
universe, and I know I'm not equal to it."

Her simple logic calmed his restless thoughts, but there was still a
strange wistfulness in his heart about Bonnie. She looked so white and
resigned and sad! He wished she hadn't gone quite so far out of his
life.

Meantime, out in the darkness of the night Bonnie's train whirled along,
and some time during the long hours between midnight and dawning it
passed in a rush and a thunder of sound the express that was bearing
back to Courtland another menace to his peace of mind.

CHAPTER XXII

Uncle Ramsey was large and imposing, with an effulgent complexion and a
prosperous presence. He wore a double-jeweled ring on his apoplectic
finger, and a scarab scarf-pin. His eyes were keen and shifty; his teeth
had acquired the habit of clutching his fat black cigar viciously while
he snarled his rather loose lips about them in conversation. Uncle
Ramsay never looked one in the face when he was talking. He looked off
into space, where he appeared to have the topic under discussion in
visible form before him. He never took up with the conversation his host
offered. He furnished the topics himself and pinned one down to them. It
really was of no use whatever to start any subject unless it had been
previously announced, because it never got further than the initiative.
Uncle Ramsey always went on with whatever he had in mind. Tennelly knew
this tendency, realized that in writing the letter he had taken the only
possible way of bringing Courtland to his uncle's notice.

After an exceedingly good dinner at the frat. house, where Tennelly did
not usually dine, and being further reinforced by one of the aforesaid
fat black cigars, Uncle Ramsey leaned back in Tennelly's leather chair,
and began:

"Now, Thomas!"

Tennelly stirred uneasily. He despised that "Thomas." His full name was
Llewellyn Thomas Tennelly. At home they called him "Lew." Nobody but
Uncle Ramsey ever dared the hat