“Oh!” exclaimed Sue. “And did she die here, poor thing?”
“She died in Bellevue Hospital,” said Miss Ann very quietly, and for a moment the little woman ceased speaking. She did not refer to what she herself had meant to the poor girl in question; how time and time again she had stood by this poor inebriate; how she would go out at night and hunt her up in the cafés and restaurants and take her home and put her to bed; how at last she became hopeless and desperately ill, with no one to appeal to save Miss Ann, and then her death in Bellevue, and the funeral which Miss Ann arranged and paid for.
“Tell me—how long have the architects—Mr. Atwater and Mr. Grimsby, I mean—been here?” asked Sue, breaking the silence.
“Well, my dear—let me see—all of six months, I should say.”
“You won’t think it strange in my asking, will you, Miss Moulton?—but, you see, we had hardly gotten settled before they asked mother and me and Mr. Ford to a musicale in their rooms. My stepfather went, but—well, mother and I declined. It seemed so forced and sudden. Can’t you understand, Miss Moulton? I just couldn’t.”
“I dare say they meant no harm,” declared Miss Ann. Then, after a brief reflective pause: “Of course, dear, as you say, it was a little sudden. When I was your age, my child, the young men were different than they are nowadays—as for these young fellows, they both seem to be gentlemen and of good family. At least what little I have seen of them leads me to believe so. Mr. Grimsby is always so exceedingly polite.”
“Oh! it’s easy to be polite,” returned Sue hastily. “It isn’t that, Miss Moulton. I—I don’t believe I can quite explain it to you; I don’t believe you’d understand it if I did. I’m foolish, I suppose; and then it’s so different in New York—but I just couldn’t go the other night. The next day I met Mr. Grimsby on the stairs, I told him I was sorry—I guess he understood—but the very next day he persisted in calling on mother.”
“And may I ask what was your dear mother’s impression, my dear?”
“Mother didn’t see him,” confessed Sue without turning her head, her blue eyes gazing at the fire. “Mother told Bridget to tell him she begged to be excused,” she added, turning and flushing slightly. “Mother did not like the idea of his calling, anyway. It seemed so forced; we were hardly settled and perfect strangers, you see.”
“And your stepfather—he went, you say, my dear?”