“But could you take care of them safely?” the other asked with evident surprise.
“I couldn’t heretofore, but it may be different now!” and he leaned forward with a smile of satisfaction. “You saw how moved Rhoda was just now. She’s been reading ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ and it’s had a profound effect upon her, just as I hoped it would. She went down to Cincinnati with me last week and I took her to Levi Coffin’s. She was very much interested in the talk there—you know about what it was. After she’s had time to think about it—Rhoda doesn’t do things on impulse, you know—I believe, Horace, my girl will be ready to help me out!”
“But what about—” Hardaker began, then stopped, embarrassed.
“I know what you mean. I wouldn’t, of course, ask Mrs. Ware to concern herself actively in the matter, or to know any more about it than she wanted to. But we could depend on her to keep her own counsel. Charlotte need not know anything about it—although she’d be pretty sure to find out all about it before long. Then she’d tell me frequently and forcibly, just what kind of a pickpocket she considers me—” He stopped a moment, smiling indulgently, but went on, conviction in his tone: “But she wouldn’t tell. She’d be loyal to me. And as for my colored man Jim and his wife Lizzie, in the kitchen, they’ll do anything under the sun to help the thing along. They bought their freedom, only a few years ago. I think, Horace, it will be all right!”
Rhoda found her mother and sister in the big, cool sitting-room, Mrs. Ware darning stockings and Charlotte at the piano, playing “The Battle of Prague.” She wheeled round at Rhoda’s announcement of the guest for dinner.
“That Black Abolitionist!” she exclaimed scornfully, her eyes flashing. “I shall not sit at the table with him!”
“Charlotte!” her mother chided. “Your father’s guest! Be ashamed!”
“Why don’t you decline to sit at the table with father?” Rhoda asked quietly, but with an unaccustomed tone in her voice that made the other look at her sharply. Her face and manner still betrayed signs of her recent agitation. Charlotte saw them and wondered if anything had been happening between her and Horace Hardaker. She did not know that he had more than once plead his suit with Rhoda and had been denied.
“Where is he now?” she asked.
“In the office, with father.”