"Mine? I was n't conscious of anything unusual about them."
"We were speaking of you and your evident executive ability, and we took the time on our drive to try to settle a little business matter that concerns you. ("Ah, wages," I thought with satisfaction.) We tried to agree but we failed; and although we did not come to blows over the question, it was not settled to my satisfaction, at least. You don't mind my speaking very frankly?"
"No, indeed; I wish you would." I looked up at him over the turned-up fur collar of Mr. Ewart's fox skins—"pelts" is our name for them in New England—and smiled merrily. I was right glad to get down, at last, to some business basis and know where I stood. Again I saw the perplexed look in his eyes.
"Why?"
"Because, naturally, you know, I look for pay day to help out."
"Naturally," he repeated gravely; then laughed out, a hearty, good-comrade laugh. "Just how long have you been here?"
"A month yesterday."
"And wages overdue!"
I nodded emphatically. I felt as if I could tell this man beside me, with his wide experience of humankind, about the pitiful sum of twenty-two dollars I had saved from my wreck of life in New York; about my scrimpings; even of the two pair of stockings, and the square of newspaper reposing at that very minute on my chest and crackling audibly when I drew a deeper breath. There was no feeling of soul-shame on account of my poverty with him, any more than I should have felt physical shame at the nakedness of my body if subject to one of his famous surgical operations. Had not this man helped to bring me into the world? Should I have been here but for him? Had he not known me as an entity before I knew anything of the fact of life? This idea of him disarmed my pride.
"H'm," he said at last, thoughtfully, "I must live up to my reputation of owing no man or woman over night. You shall have it so soon as we get back to the house—and well earned too," he added; "I had no idea an advertisement could bring about such a satisfactory result."