"We got yet."
More tapping of the pencil accompanied by a sotto voce murmur—"Soap ... kitchen cleanser ... new potatoes ... see about electric light bulbs ... coffee——" she raised her voice again: "We've got plenty of coffee I know."
Silence from the kitchen.
"Hulda, we've got plenty of coffee! I got a pound on Wednesday."
Silence. Then—"He don't last over Sunday."
"Not—why my dear young woman——" the swinging door whiffed and whoofed with the energy of her exit as she passed into the kitchen to do battle with the coffee-toper.
Lottie was quite unconscious of the frown that her rasped nerves had etched between her eyes. She was so accustomed to these breakfast irritations that she did not know they irritated her. She was even smiling a little, grimly amused.
It was a lowering Chicago March morning, gray, foggy, sodden, with a wet blanket wind from the lake that was more chilling than a walk through water and more penetrating than severe cold. The months-old soot-grimed snow and ice lay everywhere. The front page predicted rain. Not a glint of sunlight filtered through the yellow pane of the stained-glass window in the Payson dining room. "Ugh!" thought Lottie picturing the downtown streets a morass of mud trampled to a pudding consistency. And yet she smiled. She was to have the morning alone; the morning from eight until almost noon. There was Gussie to interview. There was Judge Barton to confer with—dear Emma Barton. There was poor Jennie to dispose of. There was work to do. Real work. Lottie rose from the table and stood in the pantry doorway holding the swinging door open with one foot as she was getting into her coat.
"I'll be back by noon, mother, surely. Perhaps earlier. Then we'll go right over to your buildings and collect the rents and market on the way back."
"Oh," said Mrs. Payson only. Her mouth was pursed.