Agatha shrank from the question; but there was a constraining kindliness in the older woman’s eyes.
“I daren’t quite think about it yet. I mean to try. I must try. I seem to be playing an utterly contemptible, selfish part, but I could not marry him—now!”
Mrs. Hastings crossed the room, and sat down by her side.
“My dear,” she said, “as I told you, I think you are doing right, and I believe I know how you feel. Everybody prophesied disaster when I came out to join Allen from a sheltered home in Montreal, and at the beginning my life here was not easy to me. It was all so different, and there were times when I was afraid, and my heart was horribly heavy. If it hadn’t been for Allen I think I should have given in and broken down. He understood, however. He never failed me.”
Agatha’s eyes grew misty, and she turned her head away.
“Yes,” she replied, “that would make it wonderfully easier.”
“You must forgive me,” apologized Mrs. Hastings. “I was tactless, but I didn’t mean to hurt you. Well, one difficulty shouldn’t give us very much trouble. Why shouldn’t you stay here with me?”
Agatha turned towards her abruptly with a look of relief in her face, which faded quickly. She liked this woman, and she liked her husband, but she remembered that she had no claim on them.
“Oh,” she declared, “it is out of the question.”
“Wait a little. I’m proposing to give you quite as much as you will probably care to do. There are my two little girls to teach, and I think they have rather taken to you. I can scarcely find a minute for their lessons, and, as you have seen, there is a piano which has only a few of the keys broken. Besides, we have only one Scandinavian maid who smashes everything that isn’t made of indurated fiber, and I’m afraid she’ll marry one of the boys in a month or two. It was only by sending the kiddies to Brandon and getting Mrs. Creighton, a neighbor of ours, to look after Allen, who insisted on my going, that I was able to get to Paris with some Montreal friends. In any case, you’d have no end of duties.”