He turned away into another room, leaving the matter of Aunt Clara suspended in the air. He saw then that he ran no risk of Shirley guessing what his gift had cost him. He wondered if he yet guessed how much it would cost.
Soon Aunt Clara arrived, in a taxicab and wearing a businesslike, purposeful air. She made herself promptly and perfectly at home and freely passed judgment on all she saw; and very little escaped Aunt Clara's eyes. She inspected the flat and, inquiry establishing the rent, sniffingly reminded them that she and Uncle John—now unhappily deceased—had begun their housekeeping in a fifteen-dollar-a-month cottage. Pouncing upon a drawerful of Davy Junior's sweaters and slippers and lacy dresses, she cited the case of John, fils, who until he was three years old had never had more than two dresses and one coatie at a time. David's books struck her as an appalling extravagance; she and the late Uncle John had never thought of a library until they had ten thousand in bank.
"You are very poor managers, I must admit. You've been married more than four years, and what have you to show for it but didoes—and debts, as I understand?"
The question went home to David's heart. But it was he who, catching up Davy Junior, held out the crowing youngster for her inspection.
"We have this."
And then, a sudden wave of emotion surging unbidden within him, he caught the child sharply to him. He turned away quickly to hide this unwonted demonstration, but Aunt Clara saw.
"Very pretty! But sentiment butters no bread."
"Sometimes," he returned gravely, "it makes dry bread palatable."
"Humph!" remarked Aunt Clara. "And now let us have dinner—something more than dry bread and sentiment, if you please. I never talk business on an empty stomach."
To David, love and pride quivering from hurts lately sustained, that dinner, eaten to the accompaniment of the jarring critical voice, seemed endless. And yet, thinking of a worse thing to come, he could have wished it to last until midnight or that hour which found Aunt Clara too sleepy for business. It lasted until Aunt Clara had slowly sipped her second cup of coffee—which, inquiry brought out, cost forty-three cents the pound.