“I don’t want any pay. The debt was all on my side. I owe you a whole lot more yet. You foolish woman! Why didn’t you tell me what was going on? What would you have done for a living if they had put you out of that post office?”
She tried to smile. “I should have got along some way,” she said. “I had planned it pretty well out. I should have boarded with Abbie—I am going to do that anyhow—and worked harder at the millinery, that is all. I would have got along.”
“Yes,” with a disgusted grunt, “you would have got along; all creation couldn’t stop your doing that, I guess. But what kind of a get-along would it have been? This is why you sublet your house, of course. I knew there was something behind that.... Now you aren’t going boarding down at Abbie Makepeace’s. You are going to stay right here. There is plenty of room. Nabby needs you to help. Yes, you are going to stay. You will stay—at least until the time comes when I put those Hopkinses out of your own place and you go back there to live, where you ought to be.”
“No, Foster—”
“I say yes! Confound it! Let me have my own way once in a while, won’t you?”
This was like the old Foster Townsend, the big mogul. Her smile broadened. He noticed it and smiled also.
“Sit down over there a minute, Reliance,” he ordered. “I want to talk to you.”
She took the rocker so recently vacated by the Honorable Mooney. He sank into the leather chair and stretched his legs. She waited for him to speak, but he did not.
“Well, Foster,” she asked, after a moment, “what is it?”
He jingled the change in his pocket, the old habit of his. He appeared a little uneasy.