He always made me tell him every little detail of my life, and when I said I found it difficult to write, because of so many men coming to see Lolly,—I didn't mention that they were coming to see me, too!—he said:
"You're going to move out of this place right away. We'll look about for rooms to-morrow."
So then I knew he was not going back that night, and I was so glad that I knelt down beside him and cuddled up against his knee. I wished that he would put his arm about me, but all he did was to push back the loose hair that slipped over my cheek, and after that he kept his hand on my head.
He was much pleased with my description of the rooms at Mrs. Kingston's. He said we'd go there the next day and have a look at them. He said I was to stay home from work the next day, but I protested that I couldn't do that—Fred's last day! Unless I did just what he told me, it exasperated him always, and he now said:
"Then go away from me. I don't want anything to do with a girl who won't do even a trifling thing to please me."
I said that it wasn't trifling, and that I might lose my position; for the new man was to take charge to-morrow, and I ought to be there.
"Damn the new man!" he said.
He was a singularly unreasonable man, and he could sulk and scowl for all the world like a great boy. I told him so, and he unwillingly laughed, and said I was beyond him. To win him back to good humor, I got out some of my new stories, and, sitting on the floor at his feet, read them to him. I read two stories. When I was through, he got up and walked up and down, pulling at his lower lip in that way he had.
"Well," I challenged, "can I write?"
He said: