She made a contemptuous gesture. The woman was really very good-looking, but baffling in her manner, as Mr. Robinson had said, and very hard to classify. “That isn’t what interests me,” she protested. “I’ve other reasons. You’re not a relative of the family, are you?” she asked impetuously, leaning over the table to get a nearer view of my face.
“No, nor even a friend. I am in their employ just now as a companion to Mrs. Packard. Her health is not very good, and the mayor is away a great deal.”
“I thought you didn’t belong there. I know all who belong there. I’ve little else to do but stare across the street,” she added apologetically and with a deep flush. “Business is very poor in this shop.”
I was standing directly in front of her. Turning quickly about, I looked through the narrow panes of the door, and found that my eyes naturally rested on the stoop of the opposite house. Indeed, this stoop was about all that could be seen from the spot where this woman stood.
“Another eve bent in constant watchfulness upon us,” I inwardly commented. “We are quite surrounded. The house should certainly hold treasure to warrant all this interest. But what could this one-time domestic know of the missing bonds?”
“An old-fashioned doorway,” I remarked. “It is the only one of the kind on the whole street. It makes the house conspicuous, but in a way I like. I don’t wonder you enjoy looking at it. To me such a house and such a doorway suggest mystery and a romantic past. If the place is not haunted—and only a fool believes in ghosts—something strange must have happened there or I should never have the nervous feeling I have in going about the halls and up and down the stairways. Did you never have that feeling?”
“Never. I’m not given to feelings. I live one day after another and just wait.”
Not given to feelings! With such eyes in such a face! You should have looked down when you said that, Bess; I might have believed you then.
“Wait?” I softly repeated. “Wait for what? For fortune to enter your little shop-door?”
“No, for my husband to come back,” was her unexpected answer, uttered grimly enough to have frightened that husband away again, had he been fortunate or unfortunate enough to hear her. “I’m a married woman, Miss, and shouldn’t be working like this. And I won’t be always; my man’ll come back and make a lady of me again. It’s that I’m waiting for.”