Again Frederick found an excuse.
"She can't go when she's out of Ithaca, and I took Miss Skinner a message from my mother today. If Madelene hadn't acted so abominably, I'd have told her about it."
Waldstricker looked keenly at the other man.
"I didn't notice you tried very hard to explain matters this afternoon! Now, did you?"
"I was mad," retorted Frederick, sulkily.
"May I see the message your mother sent?" came quickly from Waldstricker.
Frederick started. Evidently his brother-in-law didn't believe his story.
"If Miss Skinner'll give it to you, you can!" said he. "... I say, Eb, let Madelene and me get out of this the best way we can, won't you? Tell Maddie to behave herself and leave the Skinner girl's name out of her rages at me.... That's all I ask."
"No," thundered Ebenezer, wrathfully. "I won't have my sister in tears all the time over a squatter girl. Madelene says you received letters from her abroad."
"Well, I didn't," snapped back Frederick.
"That's past, anyhow! Now, then, I'm going to tell you something. I need a man to go to San Francisco to our office there, and as Madelene wants a change, I'm going to send you."
Frederick shuddered. Had he dared, he would have rebelled at this wholesale delivering him over, tied hand and foot, to his tempestuous young wife. If he were sent away, what would become of Tessibel? His heart turned sick with apprehension. He had had no time to explain his plans to her.
"You have no objections to going, I suppose?" Ebenezer broke in on his harassing thoughts.
"No! If Madelene's satisfied, I am," replied Frederick, flipping the ash from his cigarette.
"Then be ready to get away by, let me see, early in March," his brother-in-law announced.
Early in March, and this was but December! He had that much grace then. He could do something for Tess if the family relaxed its vigilance upon him a little.
"And there's something else," proceeded Waldstricker. "It's--it's this!"
Then he deliberately made a statement that brought a red fire into Frederick's eyes. He staggered to his feet.
"You wouldn't, you couldn't do that, Ebenezer," he groaned.
"Oh, ho!... That gets you on the raw, does it, young man?" sneered the elder, one lip-corner rising to an unusual height. "So you do care that much, eh?... A while ago you made the statement she was nothing to you."
"I want to be human," Frederick managed to get out.
"Human, eh? No, that's not it! What you want is a few other women on your staff besides your wife. But you won't as long as you're married to my sister, and I'm running things. I'll see that none of the members of my family disobey my law or God's law either."