“I regret more than I can tell you that it is impossible. If it were myself,—if it were my own money that I advanced you, I could perhaps be less insistent, but as it is, this money belongs to another,—in fact, it is part of my daughter’s estate. She is perfectly helpless, utterly ignorant of business; it is necessary for me to exercise the greatest care in administering her affairs. It is a sacred trust, Mrs. Merriam, a sacred trust from her dear mother.”
“I came to-day,” said the woman’s voice, apologetically, “hoping that payment could be deferred.”
“Yes, to be sure; it’s wise to be forehanded. But the loan must be paid at the maturity of the last note, in May. I must close my wife’s estate very soon. I have timed all my loans to that end.”
The purring voice stole through the anteroom, where Zelda sat forward in her chair, listening with parted lips and wonder and pain in her eyes. The book in her lap fell to the bare floor, making a sharp clatter that startled her. She gave a little gasp and reached for it, scarcely stooping, so intent were her eyes on the door of the inner room; and when she had regained it, she ran into the hall and down the steps to the street.
She turned west toward the gray shaft of the monument and round it, past the little Gothic church, to High Street. She felt a great yearning for sympathy, for some one to whom she could confess her misery and heartache. It was growing dark, and when she reached her uncle’s house, the lights shone brightly in his library. She knew he was there, and that she could, at a word, make his house her home and shake herself free forever from her father. She was always rebuffing and thwarting her Uncle Rodney in his efforts to help her. But at the gate she paused with her hand on the catch. The Japanese boy opened the front door just then to pick up the evening paper, and the hall light fell upon the steps invitingly. But she hurried on. The lights in the houses mocked her; here were homes in a city of homes, and she was as homeless and friendless as though she walked in a wilderness. She came to Mrs. Forrest’s house. There, too, a welcome awaited her; but the thought of the overheated rooms, of the cheerless luxury in which her aunt lived, stifled her. She felt no temptation to make any appeal there.
Her pride rose again; she would not break under a burden her mother had borne; and with this thought in her heart, she turned into a side street that led to her father’s house and walked slowly homeward.
Without putting aside her wraps she dropped a match into the kindling in the fireplace of the living-room, and waited until the flames leaped into the throat of the chimney. Polly was in the dining-room, showing a new assistant how to lay the table for the evening meal, and she came to the folding doors and viewed Zelda with the interest that the girl always had for her. Polly was Zelda’s slave, and she went about half the day muttering and chuckling over what seemed to her Zelda’s unaccountable whims.
“Polly,” said Zelda, “this is Julius Cæsar’s birthday,—or Napoleon Bonaparte’s or the Duke of Argyle’s—do you understand?”
The black woman showed all her teeth in appreciation.
“And we’ll have out the candlesticks,—those very high ones; and you may use that gold-banded china and the real cut glass. And mind,—some terrible thing will happen to you, if you let that new weird young thing out there break a single piece. Comprenez-vous? Yes? Then you may return to your enchantments. But mind you, no trifling with your sacred trust! Let those sweet potatoes sauté approximate, if they do not fully realize, perfection. And as for that duck—the dear little thing—pray remember that roasting does not mean incineration. You may go now.”