“You seemed to be having a delightful time in Boston when you last wrote,” ventured Brooke, quietly, in an endeavour to hasten and focus the explanation, which, being epigrammatically expressed, acquired vagueness thereby.
“Yes, I did at first, until I found out that my friend Mrs. Dow was charging her car fare up to me when she took me about, and that her company, with which the house was so full that I had to take a third story back, were boarders, and I was charged double rates because I’d only come for what she called the ‘cream of the season.’ I didn’t find all this out until the first month’s payday, and then I overlooked it because I know learned men never get big salaries and I felt for Judith’s pride. The next shock was that Mr. Dow, who I supposed was at the very least a professor or something in the museum and, as they say, ‘counted an honourable position above high pay,’ was only the janitor! One day when I was out alone I called on him, and the door man said the only person of that name about the place was tending the furnace in the cellar. As I stood on the sidewalk, hesitating, wondering if I had mistaken the place, up popped Dow’s head through the coal-hole!
“Why hadn’t I guessed it before? I don’t know why, except that you don’t judge a man by his looks or his clothes in Boston, only by his language, and Mr. Dow certainly had a choice and entertaining flow. I meant to speak of it to Judith, but I let that pass by too. Thinking of being married so soon myself made me feel sympathy for a woman who wanted the man of her choice to appear to advantage. All the same I felt like shortening my stay as much as possible, and I wrote to James White to that effect, he replying by return mail. He said that only one thing stood in the way of his coming on the first of April, instead of waiting until May; a small mortgage of three thousand dollars was due on the farm, so that he must wait and arrange for it, as he wished to use the money he had in hand for our journey and improving the place to suit me. He hinted that money cost more out in Wisconsin than it does East, but he guessed that he’d have no difficulty in renewing the mortgage at ten per cent.”
Here Miss Keith paused for breath, clenched her hands, and set her teeth, as if taking a fresh grip on herself before she continued the confession. The expression on her face was that of a martyr, not only refusing to recant, but rather insisting upon punishment. This time, however, there was a third auditor, the Cub, who was standing in the hallway, concealed by the door niche, his rather small, deep-set, gray eyes fairly sparkling with mischief.
“As I said before, a fool and his money are soon parted, and here is where I parted from mine. I don’t excuse myself and say that I was overpersuaded, for I wasn’t—I was hallucinated and avaricious all in one. My twenty years’ savings, four thousand dollars, only drew four per cent in the savings-banks where I’d put it. If I took up that mortgage at seven even, I should really be owning my own home, favouring my husband, and being well paid for so doing, besides having something left over, for even then a long experience in peddling eggs had learned me not to put them all in one basket.
“So I wrote James White, and after a little of what seemed natural hesitation, he took my offer, told me how to forward the money, and said he’d bring the mortgage on with him, as it would be safer than in the mails. Also that he would be on in ten days and bring his youngest girl with him, as she was piney and he wanted her to see a Boston doctor, and she’d be company for me if I felt strange in going back. He did write real considerate,” and Miss Keith paused a moment, as if she could not yet wholly forget her hopes.
“I lived well at Judith Dow’s those last ten days,—ice-cream every night and as much real clear coffee as I could drink; and Mr. Dow brought home three reserved-seat tickets to a Boston Symphony concert, but there was a blizzard that night and the electrics got fouled, so we didn’t get there, which was probably lucky, as I now firmly believe he found the tickets in the street, or else in the museum, and the owner might have faced us down.
“Judith helped me with my shopping, and I was ready even to my bonnet (yes, that very one lying annihilated over there) the last week of March. James wrote that he would be on by the first week of April, and he was, the first day, as it chanced. It was just before supper that night when Judith came running up all those three flights of stairs and only had strength left to say ‘they’ve come,’ and ask me wouldn’t I rather meet James alone before they all came in to tea, adding that her little niece was very weary and so she had gone to bed. I thought Judith looked rather queer and pale, but I laid it to the stairs and a weak heart, and having my new blue waist on, I went straight down.
“Judith opened the door of the parlour to let me pass, but as there was nobody in it but a lean old man with a loose, close-shaven upper lip and chin whiskers, I backed out again, thinkin’ she’d made a mistake, and James was in the livin’ room where we ate; but she held the door, and I said, thinking she didn’t notice, ‘Mr. White isn’t here!’
“‘Yes, he is,’ said she; ‘James, this is Keith West, your affianced!’