"Oh!" gasped Donelle to whom money was a dead language; "Mamsey, that is awful."
Norval was afraid he was going to spoil everything by roaring aloud. Instead he said:
"I can stand that, Mam'selle. I suppose you'll call it a dollar if I'm put out to-morrow?"
"Surely."
Then Jo bustled about preparing food while Donelle went back to Molly, with Nick hurtling along in the dark beside her.
And so Norval, known as Alton, occupied the upper chamber of Jo Morey's house. His artist's eye gloated over the rare old furniture; he touched reverently the linen and the woollen spreads; he laid hands as gentle as a woman's on the dainty curtains; and he gave thanks, as only a weary-souled man can, for the haven into which he had drifted. He was as nervous as a girl for fear he might be weighed and found wanting by Mam'selle Morey. He contemplated, should she give him notice, buying her. Then he laughed. He had not been in the little white house twenty-four hours before he realized that his landlady was no ordinary sort and to view her in the light of a mercenary was impossible.
But Jo did not dismiss her boarder. His adaptability won her from the start and, although she frowned upon him, she cooked for him like an inspired creature and hoped, in her heart, that she might prove worthy of the fulfilment of her dreams. To Donelle's part in the arrangement she gave, strangely enough, little thought except that the money would ease the future for the girl. Perhaps poor Jo, simple as a child in many ways, believed that it was inherent in a boarder to be exempt from the frailties of other and lesser men. She never thought of him in terms of sex, and Donelle was still to her young, very young.
Alton had been with her a week when Marcel Longville, embodying the sentiments of the village, came deprecatingly into Jo's kitchen and sat dolefully down on a hard yellow chair. She sniffed critically. Marcel was a judge of cooking, but no artist. She cooked of necessity, not for pleasure. Jo revelled in ingredients and had visions of results.
"Crullers and chicken!" said Marcel. "You certainly do tickle the stomach, Mam'selle."
"He pays well and steady," Jo answered, attending strictly to business. "And such a relisher I've never seen. Not even among your best payers, Marcel. They always ate and thought afterward if they wanted to, or had to; mine thinks while he eats. I've watched him pause a full minute over a mouthful, getting the flavour."