"Won't you let me be your purseholder for those who have less, Connie? That is the very least you can do."
Constance willed it thankfully. After the trying day of refusals it was grateful to find something that could be conceded.
"I believe I told you once that I wouldn't be your proxy in that way, didn't I? But I will, now. You are so much better than your theories, Myra."
Myra left the window at that, wrote a generous check before the concession should have time to shrink in the cooling, and then went over to sit on the denim-covered lounge with her arm around her cousin's waist.
"Now that you have begun to be reasonable, won't you go a step farther, Connie, dear? I know there are troubles,—lots of them besides the pinching. Can't you lean on me just a little bit? I do so want to help you."
Connie did it literally, with her face on Myra's shoulder and a sob at the catching of her breath. Myra let her take her own time, as a judicious comforter will, and when the words came they wrought themselves into a confession.
"Oh, Myra, I thought I was so strong, and I'm not!" she wept. "The bullet in a gun hasn't less to say about where it shall be sent. I said it wasn't the pinch, but it is—or part of it is. Poppa has set his heart upon trying the mountains again, old as he is, and he can't go because—because there isn't money enough to outfit him with what he could carry on his back!"
"And you would have let me go without telling me!" said Myra reproachfully. "He shall have a whole pack train of 'grub stake,'—is that what I should say?—and you shall come and stay with us while he is away. Consider that a trouble past, and tell me some more. You don't know how delicious it is to be permitted to pose as a small god in a car."
"Yes, I do," Connie responded, out of a heartful of similar ecstasies. "But it isn't a trouble past: he won't let you do it. Everybody has been offering to lend him money, and he won't take it."
"He will have to take it from me," said Myra, with prompt decision. "I'll make him. And when he goes, you will come to us, won't you?"