But to his eyes the girl he was learning to glorify presented as fair an exterior in the garish day, and the reality of her beauty became a fixed fact in his consciousness, and his fancy had already begun to endow her with angelic qualities. With all her vanity, even sorrowful Edith would have laughed heartily at his ideal of her. It was one of the hardest ordeals of his life to take the money she paid him, and she saw and wondered at his repugnance.
"You will never get rich," she said, "if you are so prodigal in work, and so spare in your charges."
"I would rather not take anything," he said dubiously, holding the money, as if it were a coal of fire, between his thumb and finger.
"Then I must find some one who will do business on business principles," she said coldly. "If the fellow has any sentimental nonsense about him, I'll soon cure that," she thought.
Arden colored, thrust his money carelessly into his pocket as if it were of no account, and said briefly, "Good-morning."
But when alone he put the money in the innermost part of his pocketbook, and when his father asked him for some of it, he sternly answered:
"No, sir, not a cent." Nor did he spend it himself; why he kept it could scarcely have been explained. He was simply acting according to the impulses of a morbid romantic nature that had been suddenly and deeply impressed. The mother's quick eye detected a change in him and she asked:
"What do you think of our new neighbor?"
"Mother," said he fervently, "she is an angel."
"My poor boy," said she anxiously, "take care. Don't let your fancy run away with you."