“We shall be very glad to extend the time,” he said. “You may remember I told you the other evening that so far as our house was concerned, we should probably be willing to sell your uncles indefinitely, for old times' sake.”
His visitor frowned.
“We are not asking it for old times' sake,” she said. “It is the new times I am interested in. And please understand this isn't sentiment but business. If you do not believe what I ask to be a safe business risk, that one your firm would be justified in accepting from anybody, then you mustn't do it.”
Mr. Green hesitated. “Suppose I do not accept that risk,” he said; “what then?”
“Then I shall go and see some other creditors, the principal ones, and make them similar propositions.”
“And suppose they don't accept?”
“I think they will, most of them. If they don't—well, then there is another way. My uncles own their house and store. They have been thinking of selling their property to pay their debts. I should hate to have them sell, and I don't believe it is necessary. I have been talking with Judge Baxter over at Ostable—I stopped there on my way to Boston—and he suggested that they might mortgage and raise money that way. It could be done, couldn't it? Mortgages are a kind of business I don't know anything about. They sound horrid.”
“Sometimes they are. Miss Lathrop, if I were you I shouldn't sell or mortgage yet. I am inclined to believe, judging by this balance sheet and what you say, that you have a chance to pull Hamilton and Company out of the fire, and I'm very sure you can do it if anyone can. Are you going to be in the city for a day or two? Good! Then will you let me consider this whole matter until—say—Thursday? By that time I shall have made up my mind and may have something to say which will be worth while. Can you come in Thursday afternoon at two? And will you? Very well. Oh, don't thank me! I haven't done anything yet. Perhaps I shall not be able to, but we shall hope for the best.”
Mary went straight to Mrs. Wyeth's home on Pinckney Street and once more occupied her pleasant room on the third floor. In spite of her determination not to care she could not help feeling a little pang as she walked by the Misses Cabot's school and remembered that she would never again enjoy the privileges and advantages of that exclusive institution. She wondered how the girls, her classmates, had felt and spoken when they heard the news that she had left them and returned to Cape Cod and storekeeping. Some would sneer and laugh—she knew that—and some might be a little sorry. But they would all forget her, of course. Doubtless, most of them had forgotten her already.
But the fact that all had not forgotten was proved that very evening when, as she and Mrs. Wyeth and Miss Pease were sitting talking together in the parlor, Maggie, the maid, answering the ring of the doorbell, ushered in Miss Barbara Howe. Barbara was, as usual, arrayed like the lilies of the field, but her fine petals were decidedly crumpled by the hug which she gave Mary as soon as she laid eyes upon her.