“Not yet, Josey,” Everard said, explaining to her rapidly how much worse the matter was for them now his mother was dead.
She might, and would, have helped them when the crisis came, but now there was no one to stand between him and his father, who was sure to take some desperate step if he knew of the rash marriage before his son was through college.
“We must wait, Josey, two years, sure,” he said; and, because she could not help herself, Josephine assented, very sweetly, though with something of an injured air, and managed next to speak of money, and asked if he hated her for being such a leech.
“You mustn’t, for I couldn’t help it,” she said, and she leaned on his arm, and buttoned and unbuttoned his coat, and caressed him generally, as she continued: “Maybe you didn’t know how poor the bride was, or you would not have taken her. Mother is in Boston now about some mortgage on the house, and it takes so much to live decently, and my lessons cost frightfully; but you are glad to have me improve, dearest?”
Of course he was glad, he said, but he had no means of getting money except from his father, and if she knew to what humiliation he was subjected when he asked for funds, she would spare him all she could. By and by, when he had money of his own, there should be no stint, but now she must be economical, he told her; and then she spoke of Rosamond, and asked who and what that queer little old-fashioned thing could be.
“Such a lecture as she gave Mr. Joe Fleming for gambling, and leading you wrong generally. Why, I laugh till I cry every time I think of it,” Josey said, proving the truth of what she asserted by laughing heartily.
But the laugh grated on Everard, as in some way an affront to Rossie, and he shrank from saying much of her, except to tell who she was, and how she came to be living at the Forrest House.
“And was it her own money she sent me, or where did she get it? Has she the open sesame to your father’s purse? If so, you had better apply to her, when in need,” Josey said; and in a sudden spasm of fear lest in some way Rossie should become a victim of the greed he was beginning dimly to comprehend, he told the story of the hair, but withheld the name of Beatrice, from a feeling that he would rather Josephine should not know of his acquaintance with her.
“What do you think of a girl who could do so generous a thing as that for a great lout like me?” he asked, and Josephine replied, “I think she was a little goose! Catch me parting with my hair; though I am glad she did it, as it relieved you, and was of great benefit to Joe Fleming!”
She laughed lightly, but Everard was disgusted and indignant at her utter want of appreciation of the sacrifice which few girls would have made. She saw the shadow on his face, and, suspecting the cause, changed her tactics, and became greatly interested in Rosamond, and said that she must be a generous, self-denying little thing, and she wished Everard would allow her to write to her in her own proper character as his wife. But to this he would not consent. He was not deceived by this change in her manner. He knew Josey had expressed her real sentiments at first, and there was in his heart a constantly increasing sense of disappointment and loss of something, he scarcely knew what. Nor could all Josephine’s wiles and witcheries lift the shadows from his face, and make him feel just as he used to do when he sat alone in the little parlor with her at his side. She was very charming in her brown silk, which fitted her admirably, and Beatrice herself could not have been softer, and sweeter, and gentler than she tried to be; but there was something lacking, and though Everard put his arm around her slender waist, and her golden head was pillowed on his shoulder, his heart beat with heavy throbs of pain as he spoke of her last letter to him, in which she had asked for more money. It had been his intention to give her all he had, and bid her make it last the year, but he changed his mind suddenly, and handed her only twenty dollars, and told her it was by mere chance that he was fortunate enough to have so much to give her, and that he hoped she would do the best she could with it; for, though he would gladly give her ten times the amount, if he could, the thing was impossible.