"You may take the goods," I said to the men, with sudden revulsion of feeling. "There's no room for them," I added gruffly to Mr. Winship, "in our—the rooms—where we are to live."
"All right, Boss," said the head packer; "which gent speaks for the lady?"
"Father!" Helen gasped.
"What's to pay?" insisted Mr. Winship.
"Take the goods," I repeated.
"All right, Boss;" and the two men went about their work, still glancing at us with sidelong looks of curiosity.
Helen gazed at me with eyes that stabbed. Then slowly her glance dulled. She dropped on a packing box and sat silent—a bowed figure of despair—forgetting apparently that she was not alone.
Mr. Winship made no further attempt to interfere with events. He stood by Helen's side, puzzled and taciturn.
I, too, was silent, reproaching myself for the brutality of my action, unable to decide what I should have done or ought to do. Helen herself had suggested that we give up the furniture, and I had not mourned the necessity, for I hated the stuff, with its reminders of the General and the Whitney woman and Bellmer and the Earl and all those strange people that I used to see around her. But I might have known that she could not, all at once, wean herself from the trumpery.
A minute later Clesta ushered in the man who was to take the trunks, and when I had given him his directions, I asked:—