“And you advise it?” she ventured. He assured her without speaking, his expression one of kindly approval, unvarnished, without a vestige of a doubt. “That would be seven thousand, five hundred dollars, wouldn’t it?” she inquired, still struggling with herself.
“There ain’t no use of my advisin’ less to you,” he declared. “It wouldn’t be worth your botherin’ about. I’d like to see you happy—real happy. You needn’t thank me now, but you’ll thank me some day, my friend. You won’t never regret it.”
“I—I feel so alone—so helpless,” she returned, “as if I really ought to think it all seriously over; would you mind letting me do that? I’d feel better, I think.”
“That’s just what Mrs. Miggs said to me. Now look at her. Do you suppose Mrs. Miggs has ever regretted it? Her little nest-egg beginnin’ from the very day she bought her shares; woke up the next mornin’ knowin’ her troubles were over. Took her little niece straight down to Stewart’s and bought her a new outfit from head to toe. Suppose she’d er waited? I want to see you happy, friend. I want that there happiness to begin now—to-day.” He put forth his hand to her, forcing her own small hand into its grasp, where it lay as frightened as a wren with a broken wing.
“Perhaps, then, I’d better decide,” she breathed, with a beating heart, gazing at the floor.
“That’s right!” he cried. “That’s the right kind of talk. I know sich matters are hard to think over, and decide. But we’ve done the thinkin’ and we’ve done the decidin’, ain’t we? And all them gnawin’ little doubts is over.”
“Yes,” she said, looking up at him quickly, and withdrawing her hand, a strange new courage in her eyes. “I have decided, Mr. Ford. I will take the seven thousand five hundred dollars’ worth of shares.”
In precisely seven minutes by Ebner Ford’s watch Miss Ann Moulton became the sole possessor of seven hundred and fifty shares of the Household Gem, preferred, and its receipt, and before the ink was fairly dry on her check it was tucked in Ford’s portfolio next to a five-dollar bill that his stepdaughter had loaned him that morning. He had feared the sister’s return. He had had experience with two women deciding together. It was while he was engaged in exploiting the millions contained in a vast hen industry in the Far West destined to supply half the eggs to the world—at bottom prices—the army of A No. 1 Leghorn layers being fed on imitation corn made by a secret process, producing the best cold-storage egg on the market.
He had hardly reached his room before Miss Jane’s key opened the front door. He stood screened back of his own ajar, listening to her as she wearily climbed the stairs, her purple parasol aiding her, stopping on the landings for breath. It still lacked twenty minutes before his bank in Union Square closed at three. In less than fifteen he had handed over to its silent but astonished receiving teller, for deposit, a check for more money than he had ever had to his credit in his life.
This done, he walked briskly over to the Everitt House, and through a swing-door smelling of lemons and old Bourbon sours, feeling a good deal richer than Hiram Sudwell, and of much more importance in the world than the President of the United States. The bartender noticed the change in him at a glance. He seemed younger, more at his ease. There was already a certain indescribable air of geniality and prosperity about his customer that sent the bartender’s quick hand over the bottle of “ordinary” and on to the “special,” hesitated, and settled over the neck of the decanter of “private stock,” which he produced with a clean doily and a smile of welcome.