“What are you doing here?” He dropped his hat on the hall bench.
“I’ve come to work for your mother.” She hesitated. “Supper’s ready. They’re sitting down.”
“Oh!” He looked at Hetty again. They had been schoolmates. Her seat had been just in front of his one year. He remembered, with sudden vividness, the day he stuck chewing gum in her hair. Her hair was red; a pleasant, dark red; and it was very luxuriant. “Oh—all right,” he said, and went into the dining room. His father and mother were at the table. “I see you’ve got a girl, mother,” he said.
“Yes—I’ve got Hetty Morfee.” Mrs. Chase sighed. “I’ve had the most awful time, Wint. I do hope she stays. Girls are terrible hard to get, in this town. They—”
Mrs. Chase was loquacious. Her speeches were never finished. She was always interrupted in mid-career. Otherwise, she would have talked on endlessly.
“That steak looks as though she could cook,” said Wint. “Give me some.”
CHAPTER IV
JACK ROUTT
ONE of Mrs. Chase’s difficulties with hired girls was that Winthrop Chase, Senior, liked style with his meals.
Mr. Chase was no provincial. He had traveled; he had lived at good hotels; he knew New York, Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati. He had been a guest at fine homes. He knew what was what.
“It adds tone to a repast,” he would tell his wife, over and over. “It adds tone to a repast. A neatly dressed maidservant, in apron and cap, handing your dishes around. I tell you, Margaret, it gives that—that—that style....”