Townsend nodded. “Of course you don’t,” he agreed. “I didn’t expect you to say yes or no now, to-night. I was wondering how the idea sounded to you, that’s all. You and Reliance think it over and talk it over together and when you’ve made up your mind let me know. To-morrow—yes, or the next day—will be time enough. There’s no particular hurry.”
He rose from the rocker and took his hat and coat from the side table where Millard had reverently laid them. Mr. Clark sprang to help with the ulster, but he and his proffered assistance were ignored, as usual.
“There’s just one thing more that maybe I ought to say,” the captain added, turning to Reliance, who had risen when he did. “And that is this: She,” with a jerk of the head in Esther’s direction, “doesn’t understand yet all this proposition is liable to mean. If she comes to be with me, and we get along all right and I like her, she’ll be what I said before, just the same as my daughter. If she wants to go away to boarding school she can go, I guess; I’ll decide that later on. She’s got a good voice, they tell me. Everybody says she sings pretty well and that she could sing better if she was learned how by somebody that knew. Well, I’ll see that she is learned. I’ve got a good piano up at the house. At least I suppose it’s good; it was the best I could buy and I paid enough for it. Mother used to pick at it a little, but she always said it was a pity it wasn’t used more. Esther can use it all she wants to. I don’t know anything about music. I never had much use for a man who fooled with pianos and fiddles; fact is, I never considered that kind of fellow a man at all. But I haven’t any objections to a woman’s fooling with ’em. There’s the piano and there’s the music teacher, or there can be one as well as not. Think of that, too, while you are thinking.... I guess that’s all. Good-night.”
He picked up his umbrella and strode to the door. Reliance spoke once more.
“Just a minute,” she said. “Maybe it isn’t quite all. I can see what you mean to do for Esther and perhaps I can see a little of what Millard will have to do. But where do I come in? What will I do up in that twenty-odd room house of yours, Foster Townsend? You don’t expect me to play your piano, do you?”
He laughed, laughed aloud, something which he seldom did.
“No,” he said, “I don’t expect that, Reliance. I don’t care what you do. You can do nothing, if you want to. Or you can be my housekeeper, if that suits you better. Mother kept house the way it ought to be kept and she has told me more than once that you were about the only other woman she ever ran across who was as particular as she was. You can boss Nabby and whatever hired help we have, and run things to please yourself—provided they please me, too. That is fair, isn’t it?”
Miss Clark nodded grimly. “Maybe so,” she observed. “We won’t argue about it to-night. There’s one other thing, though, that I guess you’ve forgot. I’m postmistress here in Harniss. I run a milliner shop, too, but that is my own, or two-thirds of it is, and I can do what I like with it. But the post office is different. Do you expect me to walk out of that office and leave a note for Uncle Sam sayin’ ‘You and the mail can go to Jericho. I’ve gone to Foster Townsend’s!’ Do you expect me to do that?”
Townsend laughed again. He seemed in far better spirits than when he entered that sitting-room.
“Not exactly—no,” he replied. “As for the post office,—well, who had you made postmistress in the first place?”