CHAPTER XXVI
OPEN CONFESSION
It was about the middle of the afternoon when Alison reached the Hunter homestead, and she was slightly astonished when, on inquiring for Florence, a maid informed her that the latter was busy and could not be with her for some minutes. Alison had imagined from what she had seen on previous visits that in the warm weather Florence invariably spent her afternoons reclining in a canvas chair on the veranda. A couple of chairs stood on it when she arrived, and after the maid had gone she drew one back into the shadow, and sitting down looked out across the great stretch of grain in front of the house.
All round the edge of it there were scattered men and teams, but they were moving very slowly, and almost every minute the clatter of one or another of the binders ceased and she saw stooping figures busy in front of the machine. Though she could not make out exactly what they were doing, the state of the harvest-field seemed to explain why the delays were unavoidable. Great patches of the wheat lay prone; the part that stood upright looked tangled and torn, and there were wide stretches from which it had partially disappeared, leaving only ragged stubble mixed with crumpled straw. Alison had, however, seen other crops that had been wholly wiped out by the scourging hail. She waited about a quarter of an hour before Florence appeared, looking rather hot and dressed with unusual plainness.
"You'll have to excuse me for keeping you, but I'm glad you came," she said. "I've been busy since seven o'clock this morning, and now that I've a little leisure it's a relief to sit down."
A gleam of amusement crept into Alison's eyes, and her companion evidently noticed it.
"It is rather a novelty in my case," she laughed. "On the other hand, there's no doubt that the exertion is necessary. The waste that has been going on in this homestead is positively alarming."
It cost Alison an effort to preserve a becoming gravity. Florence, who had presided over the place for several years, spoke as if the fact she mentioned, which had been patent to those who visited her for a considerable time, had only dawned upon her very recently.
"You are trying to set things straight?" she suggested.
"It threatens to prove a difficult task, but I'm making the attempt while I feel equal to it; and there's a certain interest even in looking into household accounts. For instance, I had an idea this morning that promised to save me three or four dollars a month, but when I mentioned it to Elcot he only grinned. There are one or two respects in which I'm afraid he's a little extravagant."
Alison laughed outright. The idea that Florence, who had hitherto squandered money with both hands, should trouble herself about the saving of three dollars and complain of her self-denying husband's extravagance was irresistibly amusing.