We were all laughing, and I said:
"Oh, well, I know he's not much to look at; but I'm crazy about him, anyhow, and he wants to see the rooms."
He didn't think the little room nearly good enough for me, but he said that big suite of rooms in front was just the thing. That made me laugh. Did he suppose any stenographer could afford a luxurious suite of rooms like that? There was a long room that ran across the front of the house, with big bay-windows and a great fireplace, and opening out from this room was a large bedroom, with a bath-room adjoining it. As one may see, they weren't exactly the rooms a girl getting fifteen dollars a week could afford.
I said:
"Tell him just how much you intend to 'soak' your prospective roomer for these palatial chambers."
She started to say, "Twenty-five dollars a week," which was what she had told me she expected to charge, when I saw him make a sign to her, and she hesitated. Then I knew he intended to get her to name a cheap price just for me, and pay the difference himself. But now I was too quick for him. He had actually deceived me about those clothes. I had not the remotest idea till months afterward that he had paid for them and for many other things I subsequently bought, or thought I bought; but Mrs. Kingston had already told me the price of that room. So I said:
"It's no use. I know the price."
"Yes, but for a friend," he replied, "I'm sure Mrs. Kingston would make—er—a considerable reduction."
She said nothing. I don't know how she felt. Of course she knew that I was in love with him, but, as she told me afterward, she couldn't quite make out just what our relations were.
"That's all very well," I said, "but Mrs. Kingston has to get her rent."