“But Mrs. Thornburg always gives me money.”
The smile vanished. “That’s very good of Mrs. Thornburg, certainly. But when you are in our house you won’t need her money. When you’re starting out, from this end of the route, you’ll find money in the vase.”
She looked at him intently, not quite understanding the unfriendly note in his voice. “I believe you are jealous!” she said.
“You see too much,” rejoined Baron resentfully.
“It isn’t that. You show too much!”
“Of course, I ought to be grateful for criticism from such a source!”
She regarded him with wonder, her eyes filling with tears. “You’ve no right to speak to me like that. You know I don’t need any money. You have all been so generous.... And it’s only because Mrs. Thornburg isn’t well, and because I don’t know her as well as I know you that I took money from her. She was so happy giving it to me. It would have been rude for me to refuse. But here—here I’ve been with friends!”
She brushed the tears from her eyes and ran from the room. As in other times of stress, Mrs. Shepard and the kitchen became her refuge.
Baron looked after her with an assumption of idle curiosity, but when he heard a distant door close his expression changed to real concern. He was dismayed when he thought how deeply he had wounded the child. He was aware of a sudden resentment against the Thornburgs. He sat down and gazed abstractedly at the carpet. He realized after a time that he was studying the meaningless outlines of a figure in faded colors. “We need a new carpet,” he mused. “We need everything new. And the only new thing we’ve got hold of in years is discovering that everything in the house, including ourselves, is threadbare, and respectable—and ugly.”
Then he realized that Bonnie May had come back into the room and that she was almost impatiently trying to thrust her hand into his.