“Oh, no,” said Patience, laughing outright, “he doesn’t beat me. I have better grounds for desertion than that. Do you think you would do me a favour? I shall have to slip away. He would never let me go with a trunk. I am going to ask you to let me send you a box of things every few days. That will excite no comment among the servants, as we are always sending clothes to the poor. May I?”
“Of course you may. I’ll do everything I can to help you. But—I can’t imagine you out of this environment. Don’t you hate to give it up,—all this luxury, this ease, this atmosphere?”
“Yes, I like it all. I’m a sybarite, fast enough. But I’ve weighed it all in the balance, and Peele Manor stays up. I have a hundred dollars or so, and that will last me for a time. I’ll give it to you to take care of for me. I never was wealthy, but I have no idea of economy. I don’t think I should like a hall room though. Are the others so very expensive?”
“They are if you have a good address, and that’s very important. And you want to be in a house with a handsome parlour.”
“I have no friends,—none that will come to see me.”
“Oh, you’ll make friends. You’re an awfully sweet woman. I can’t bear to think—Well, there’s no use saying any more about it. I expect you’re the sort that knows your own mind. I should like to keep on seeing you a great lady, but if you can’t be a happy one I suppose you are right. Well, I’ll stand by you through thick and thin, and I’ll show you the ropes. Now I must get back to the office and work up my story. Here’s my address. There’s a spare room on the floor above mine. If you’re in dead earnest I’d better take it right away; then I can unpack your things and hang them up. But—but—do you really mean it?”
“Of course I do.”
“You know Mr. Field personally, don’t you?”
“Very well, indeed; and he told me when I was sixteen that he should make a newspaper woman of me.”
“Oh, well, then, you’ll have a lot of push, and your road won’t be as hard as some—not by a long shot. About six out of every ten newspaper women either go to the wall or to the bad. It is a mixture of knack and pluck as much as brains that carries the favoured minority through. You have brains and pluck, and you’ll have push, so you ought to get there. About the knack of course I can’t tell. Good-bye.”