Henry nodded. He looked relieved and scared. He was right. He continued to work in the shop, and Sylvia never intimated to him that she knew anything about it.
Chapter XVII
When Henry had worked in the shop before Sylvia's inheritance, he had always given her a certain proportion of his wages and himself defrayed their housekeeping bills. He began to do so again, and Sylvia accepted everything without comment. Henry gradually became sure that she did not touch a dollar of her income from her new property for herself. One day he found on the bureau in their bedroom a book on an Alford savings-bank, and discovered that Sylvia had opened an account therein for Rose. Sylvia also began to give Rose expensive gifts. When the girl remonstrated, she seemed so distressed that there was nothing to do but accept them.
Sylvia no longer used any of Abrahama White's clothes for herself. Instead, she begged Rose to take them, and finally induced her to send several old gowns to her dressmaker in New York for renovation. When Rose appeared in these gowns Sylvia's expression of worried secrecy almost vanished.
The time went on, and it was midsummer. Horace was spending his long vacation in East Westland. He had never done so before, and Sylvia was not pleased by it. Day after day she told him that he did not look well, that she thought he needed a change of air. Henry became puzzled. One day he asked Sylvia if she did not want Mr. Allen to stay with them any longer.
“Of course I do,” she replied.
“Well, you keep asking him why he doesn't go away, and I began to think you didn't,” said Henry.
“I want him to stay,” said Sylvia, “but I don't want any foolishness.”
“Foolishness?” said Henry, vaguely.
It was a very hot afternoon, but in spite of the heat Rose and Horace were afield. They had been gone ever since dinner. It was Saturday, and Henry had come home early from the shop. The first question he asked had been concerning the whereabouts of the young people. “Off together somewhere,” Sylvia had replied. Then the conversation had ensued.