It was characteristic of Mrs. Hornblower's shrewdness that supper was always late when she had a dressmaker in the house. The fire refused to draw. A scarcity of eggs necessitated a change in her plans for supper, and the new menu invariably demanded more time than that originally decided upon. Persis, left to herself, and thoroughly understanding the purpose back of these various delays and postponements, smiled grimly, yet not without a certain reluctant admiration, and retaliated by sewing more and more slowly. And for the hundredth time that day, her thoughts returned to Mrs. Hornblower's careless reference to a prospective visit. Mr. Ware! Could she have meant Justin? His connection with the apple company made this seem almost certain, and yet it was inconceivable that Lena Hornblower should refer to his coming with such nonchalant certainty when she herself was in the dark. Persis' capable hands dropped to her lap. For the minute she was a girl again, parting from the boy who loved her, lifting her tear-wet face for the comfort of his kisses. Twenty years! Twenty long hard years! And now Justin Ware was really coming home.
She put the question bluntly to Robert Hornblower as he drove her home after dark. "Your wife said something about a Mr. Ware's coming here before long. I used to go to school with somebody of that name, Justin Ware."
The depressed and silent Mr. Hornblower roused himself.
"It's the same one. The Wares never had nothing, but I guess this here Justin has cleaned up a lot of money. Don't follow that everybody could do the same in his place, though. Some folks have the luck, and some have got the pluck, and some have both." He sighed. "Of course you understand, Persis, that Lena wants me to do exactly as I think best. Only—only when a woman gets her heart set on a thing, a man feels like a brute to think of having his own way."
"Yes," Persis said gently, "I understand." And then with more optimism than she felt she added: "Maybe something will happen so she'll look at it different."
Thomas Hardin and Joel were awaiting her in the unsocial silence characteristic of their sex when no feminine incentive to conversational brilliancy is at hand. Thomas' eyes kindled as he said good evening. Joel, after two meals in which he had fended for himself, looked more than ever like an early Christian martyr. "There's a letter come for you," he said with marked coldness.
Persis whirled about, a wild foolish hope in her heart. "A letter?
Where?"
"On the mantel, next the clock!" Joel's eyes followed his sister as she crossed the room with that quick light step, so reminiscent of girlhood. She pounced upon the letter and even her brother's eyes, dimmed by life-long self-absorption, could see that her face fell.
"I didn't know you knew anybody in Cleveland."
"Cleveland." In some mysterious manner, Persis' animation had returned. The confirmed meddler has one thing in her favor, that whatever the crisis of her own fortunes, there are always the affairs of other people to distract her thoughts. She dropped into a chair by the lamp and read the brief letter with breathless interest, too absorbed even to apologize.