Gold Watch. $50.00
IV
Now it happened that Miss Cigale, although she had said she hadn’t a penny in the world, really did have sixty-five dollars. Considered as the savings of a lifetime, it might pretty well be called nothing, and in her careless way she had so thought of it; but now she saw it in a quite different light.
She had kept that ticket when she had picked up the others, for her idea was to get back the watch for her nephew and make him happy. And to make him, perhaps, a little fond of her. She had thought it possible last night; had thought that if she brought him his watch, and told him that she was going to take a position, he would see she wouldn’t be simply an extra person to feed, but a friend and a helper; that he would like her, and they would all three live together in that dear little house, in that sweet, dear garden, in the jolliest way. She didn’t expect any of that now, though.
“No,” she said to herself. “I irritate and annoy him. I can see that. I’m afraid he belongs to the ants, and he can’t endure grasshoppers. Oh, I’m sorry! He’s such a dear boy!”
She didn’t cry, for her tears were far more apt to be brought by joy than by pain; but she was certainly unhappy, all by herself there in the daisy field. To tell the truth, Miss Cigale was very tired, and had of late been haunted by specters. Wan failure she knew and didn’t mind, but when loneliness and uselessness came out hand in hand, she trembled.
“I’ll get the watch,” she decided. “I’ll do that, anyhow. But I shan’t come back. He doesn’t want me here, and—he’s a dear boy, but I don’t think I want to come.”
It was characteristic of her that she didn’t tell her sister she would not return. If she had to do anything unpleasant, well, then, she did it, as gallantly as she could; but if unpleasant things could be avoided, right gladly would she sheer off. So she only said that she had to “run into town,” and hugged and kissed her rather unresponsive sister, and off she went, leaving behind her those heavy bags which contained all the clothes and books and ridiculous, sentimental rubbish she had in the world.
“I can send for them,” she thought, “when I decide where I’m going.” And she troubled her head no more about them. What did trouble her was a memory. It was a memory of a girl—a tall, slender, fair-haired girl, a music student in New York, living on an allowance from home. And living all too carelessly on it, so that one day she found herself penniless, and very hungry, and with four days to wait before the allowance could arrive. And this girl—in the persistent memory—had taken a little gold locket and a silver watch to the pawnbroker. She had thought it rather a joke, until she had got there.
“It’s silly to feel like that,” she said to herself this morning. “Very silly. There’s nothing dishonorable or disgraceful in—in being temporarily short of money. The most important business men have to get loans. Heads of trusts and—every one. People go to their banks to get loans, and they’re not ashamed of it. Well, this is exactly the same thing. I simply walk in, repay the loan, take the watch, and go. Exactly like paying a note at the bank.”