“Why don't you go into the dining-room to eat?” Ellen demanded.
“Got out of the wrong side of the bed, didn't you?” Edith asked. “Willy's bed, I suppose. I'm not hungry, and I always eat breakfast like this. I wish he would hurry. We'll be late.”
Ellen stared. It was her first knowledge that this girl, this painted hussy, worked in Willy's pharmacy, and her suspicions increased. She had a quick vision, as she had once had of Lily, of Edith in the Cameron house; Edith reading or embroidering on the front porch while Willy's mother slaved for her; Edith on the same porch in the evening, with all the boys in town around her. She knew the type, the sort that set an entire village by the ears and in the end left home and husband and ran away with a traveling salesman.
Ellen had already got Willy married and divorced when Mrs. Boyd came in. She carried the milk pail, but her lips were blue and she sat down in a chair and held her hand to her heart.
“I'm that short of breath!” she gasped. “I declare I could hardly get back.”
“I'll give you some coffee, right off.”
When Willy Cameron had finished his breakfast she followed him into the parlor. His pallor was not lost on her, or his sunken eyes. He looked badly fed, shabby, and harassed, and he bore the marks of his sleepless night on his face. “Are you going to stay here?” she demanded.
“Why, yes, Miss Ellen.”
“Your mother would break her heart if she knew the way you're living.”
“I'm very comfortable. We've tried to get a ser—” He changed color at that. In the simple life of the village at home a woman whose only training was the town standard of good housekeeping might go into service in the city and not lose caste. But she was never thought of as a servant. “—help,” he substituted. “But we can't get any one, and Mrs. Boyd is delicate. It is heart trouble.”