Penelope Has a Visitor
Penelope Brand lay back in her wheel-chair in the glass-enclosed porch and gave herself up to luxurious enjoyment of its sun-filled warmth. The table beside her with its books and its sewing, but just now finished and neatly folded, gave evidence that she had spent a busy morning. Outside there was bright sunshine, too, but there was also a raw March wind that filled the air with dust and stimulated the tear-ducts of the eyes that faced it. The little glass porch had brought a very great pleasure into her life, giving her, during the shut-in winter season, always hard for her to endure, wider views of earth and sky, a flood of the sunshine in which she loved to bask and, on days when it was possible to keep the entrance open, much more fresh air.
She sat there alone, loving the sunny warmth and thinking of the brother who had made her pleasure possible. Her secret mental attitude toward him was marked by a certain aloofness and a quietly judicial estimate which she did her best to conceal from her mother. It had cost her not a little effort, too, to keep this attitude from developing into stern censorious judgment. Just now it added to her pleasure that her feeling toward him, at least for the time being, could be mainly that of gratitude, though gratitude tempered by curiosity.
“Perhaps he’d have done it long ago if I had asked him,” she told herself. “And I’ve longed for something of the sort so much. I do wonder what made him finally think of it himself. It wasn’t like him. He might have thought of it and wanted to do it ten or twelve years ago, before he had plenty of money. But it’s not like him now.”
The click of the gate attracted her attention and she saw a man coming up the walk. “Why, that can’t be Felix,” she thought in doubting surprise. Then, as she looked at him more attentively, “Oh, no! It’s that Mr. Gordon who was here last winter. Felix didn’t seem to like very well his calling on us. And mother isn’t at home. Well, I’ll have to see him. And perhaps it’s just as well, for I don’t care particularly whether Felix likes it or not.”
He held her thin, talon-like hand affectionately as he asked how she was and if she enjoyed her glass cage.
“Enjoy it! Oh, Mr. Gordon! You can’t imagine how I delight in it! I sit here most of the time every day in all kinds of weather. It has given me the greatest pleasure, and I think I am better and stronger, too, because of it. I was just thinking how grateful I am to Felix.”
His face and eyes, which had been glowing with responsive pleasure, darkened at her last sentence.
“I don’t like that word ‘grateful’ in connection with such a matter,” he exclaimed quickly. “It was a little thing for Felix to do, only one out of all the many things that he could do for you if he would, and one that he ought to have done long ago. And it doesn’t seem to me, Penelope, that you would have any reason to be ‘grateful’ to Felix Brand, no matter how much he might do for you.”