It was plain to be seen that she was wavering. Billy, watching the little scene, with mingled emotions, saw the glance with which the girl swept the bare little room; and she knew that there was not a patch or darn or poverty spot in sight, or out of sight, which that glance did not encompass.
Billy was wondering which she herself desired more—that Uncle William should buy the Lowestoft, or that he should not. She knew she wished Mrs. Greggory to have the hundred dollars. There was no doubt on that point. Then Uncle William spoke. His words carried the righteous indignation of the man who thinks he has been unjustly treated, and the final plea of the collector who sees a coveted treasure slipping from his grasp.
“I am very sorry, of course, if my offer has annoyed you,” he said stiffly. “I certainly should not have made it had I not had Mrs. Greggory's assurance that she wished to sell the teapot.”
Alice Greggory turned as if stung.
“Wished to sell!” She repeated the words with superb disdain. She was plainly very angry. Her blue-gray eyes gleamed with scorn, and her whole face was suffused with a red that had swept to the roots of her soft hair. “Do you think a woman wishes to sell a thing that she's treasured all her life, a thing that is perhaps the last visible reminder of the days when she was living—not merely existing?”
“Alice, Alice, my love!” protested the sweet-faced cripple, agitatedly.
“I can't help it,” stormed the girl, hotly. “I know how much you think of that teapot that was grandmother's. I know what it cost you to make up your mind to sell it at all. And then to hear these people talk about your wishing to sell it! Perhaps they think, too, we wish to live in a place like this; that we wish to have rugs that are darned, and chairs that are broken, and garments that are patches instead of clothes!”
“Alice!” gasped Mrs. Greggory in dismayed horror.
With a little outward fling of her two hands Alice Greggory stepped back. Her face had grown white again.
“I beg your pardon, of course,” she said in a voice that was bitterly quiet. “I should not have spoken so. You are very kind, Mr. Henshaw, but I do not think we care to sell the Lowestoft to-day.”