"Oh, yes, yes," he said, nodding eagerly, "I see! It almost seems as if I remember. And you wanted to rent it for the summer, you say? You are—ah—in the agricultural business, I suppose?" He looked at her respectfully. He knew the new woman, and honored her. He did not seem at all startled that she wanted to rent a barn for the summer.
But Shirley did not in the least understand. She looked at him bewildered a moment.
"Oh, no! I am only a stenographer myself—but my mother—that is——" she paused in confusion.
"Oh, I see, your mother is the farmer, I suppose. Your home is near by—near to the barn you want to rent?"
Then she understood.
"No, oh, no!" she said desperately. "We don't want to use the barn for a barn at all. I want to use it for a house!"
It was out at last, the horrible truth; and she sat trembling to see his look of amazement.
"Use it for a house!" he exclaimed. "Why, how could you? To live in, do you mean? or just to take a tent and camp out there for a few days?"
"To live in," said Shirley doggedly, lifting her eyes in one swift defiant look and then dropping them to her shabby gloves and thin pocketbook, empty now even of the last precious nickel. If he said anything more, she was sure she should cry. If he patronized her the least little bit, or grew haughty, now that he saw how low she was reduced, she would turn and fly from the office and never look him in the face.
But he did neither. Instead, he just talked in a natural tone, as if it were the most common thing in the world for a girl to want to live in a barn, and nothing to be surprised over in the least.