“I told you I did.”
“My soul!” was all the answer he made. Then he turned and walked out.
At about eleven o'clock I was half-way through the addition of a column of figures when I heard some one say, “Well, by time!” with such anguished fervor that it was almost like a prayer for help. I looked up. Lute Rogers was staring in at me, open-mouthed and horror-stricken.
“Hello, Lute!” I said.
Lute swallowed hard.
“They told me 'twas so,” he stammered. “They said so and—and I laughed at 'em. Ros, you ain't, be you?”
“What?”
“Goin' to stay in there and—and take Henry's job?”
“Yes.”
“You be! And you never said nothin' to nobody? To Dorinda? Or even Comfort?”