The house was hers, and Edith felt anxious about it, and indeed it seemed that they were going to great expense with no certain return in view. That night one corner of the roof was left open and rain came in and did not a little damage.
Loud and bitter were the complaints of the family, but Edith said little. She was too incensed to talk about it. The next day it threatened rain and no mechanics appeared. Donning her waterproof and thick shoes, she was soon in the village, and by inquiry found the man's shop. He saw her coming and dodged out.
"Very well, I will wait," said Edith, sitting down on a box.
The man, finding she would not go away, soon after bustled in, and was about to be very polite, but Edith interrupted him with a question that was like a blow between the eyes:
"What do you mean, sir, by breaking your word?"
"Great press of work just now, Miss Allen—"
"That is not the question," interrupted Edith. "You said you would do our work immediately. You took it with that distinct understanding; and, because you have been false to your word, we have suffered much loss. You knew the roof was not all covered. You knew it when it rained last night, but the rain did not fall on you, so I suppose you did not care. But is a person who breaks his word in that style a gentleman? Is he even a man, when he breaks it to a lady, who has no brother or husband to protect her interests?"
The man became very red. He was accustomed, as his workman said, to secure every job he could, then divide and scatter his men so as to keep everything going, but at a slow, provoking rate, that wore out every one's patience save his own. He was used to the annual fault-finding and grumbling of the busy season, and bore it as he would a northeast storm as a disagreeable necessity, and quite prided himself on the good-natured equanimity with which he could stand his customers' scoldings; and the latter had become so accustomed to being put off that they endured it also as they would a northeaster, and went into improvements and building as they might visit a dentist.
But when Edith turned her scornful face and large indignant eyes full upon him, and asked practically what he meant by lying to her, and said that to treat a woman so proved him less than a man, he saw his habit of "putting off" in a new light. At first he was a little inclined to bluster, but Edith interrupted him sharply:
"I wish to know in a word what you will do. If that roof is not completed and made tight to-day, I will put the matter in a lawyer's hands and make you pay damages."