"You haven't the time—or the experience—to fit this place up," said Norman. "I'll attend to it—that is, I'll have it attended to." Seeing her uneasy expression, he added: "I can get much better terms. They'd certainly overcharge you. There's no sense in wasting money—is there?"
"No," she admitted, convinced.
He gave the order to a firm of decorators. It was a moderate order, considering the amount of work that had to be done. But if the girl had seen the estimates Norman indorsed, she would have been terrified. However, he saw to it that she did not see them; and she, ignorant of values, believed him when he told her the general account of the corporation must be charged with two thousand dollars.
Her alarm took him by surprise. The sum seemed small to him—and it was only about one fifth what the alterations and improvements had cost. Cried she, "Why, that's more than our whole income for a year has been!"
"You are forgetting these improvements add to the value of the property. I've bought it."
That quieted her. "You are sure you didn't pay those decorators and furnishers too much?" said she.
"You don't like their work?" inquired he, chagrined.
"Oh, yes—yes, indeed," she assured him. "I like plain, solid-looking things. But—two thousand dollars is a lot of money."
Norman regretted that, as his whole object had been to please her, he had not ordered the more showy cheaper stuff but had insisted upon the simplest, plainest-looking appointments throughout. Even her bedroom furniture, even her dressing table set, was of the kind that suggests cost only to the experienced, carefully and well educated in values and in taste.
"But I'm sure it isn't fair to charge all these things to the company," she protested. "I can't allow it. Not the things for my personal use."