“Oh, yes, sure,” returned Wiley, and went on with his eating with a wearied, enduring sigh.
“Well, I declare,” exclaimed the Widow, after thinking it over, “sometimes I get so discouraged with the whole darned business you could buy me out for a cent!”
She waited for a response, but Wiley showed no interest, so she went on with her general complaint.
“First, it was the Colonel, with his gambling and drinking and inviting the whole town to his house; and then your father, or whoever it was, started all this stock market fuss; and from that time it’s gone from bad to worse until I haven’t a dollar to my name. I was brought up to be a lady–and so was Virginia–and now we’re keeping a restaurant!”
Wiley pulled down his lip in masterful silence and set the breakfast tray aside. It was nothing to 53him what the Widow Huff suffered–she had brought it all on herself. And whenever she was ready to write to his father she could receive her ten cents a share. That would keep her as a lady for several years to come, if she had as many shares as she claimed; but there was nothing to his mind so flat, stale and unprofitable as a further discussion of the Paymaster. Indeed, with one leg wound up in a bandage, it might easily prove disastrous. So he looked away and, after a minute, the Widow again took up her plaint.
“Of course,” she said, “I’m not a business woman, and I may have made some mistakes; but it doesn’t seem right that Virginia’s future should be ruined, just because of this foolish family quarrel. The Colonel is dead now and doesn’t have to be considered; so–well, after thinking it over, and all the rest of it, I think I’ll accept your offer.”
“Which offer?” demanded Wiley, suddenly startled from his ennui, and the Widow regarded him sternly.
“Why, your offer to buy my stock–that paper you drew up for me. Here it is, and I’m willing to sign it.”
She drew out the paper and Wiley read it silently, then rolled it into a ball and chucked it into the corner.
“No,” he said, “that offer doesn’t hold. I didn’t know you then.”