Miss Palmer said nothing to him in reply.
"And you can get it after the first payment like paying rent," commented the other teacher.
"Um-m," let out Miss Palmer, sweetly.
"What sweet real estate dealer offers such bargains and easy things?" said Wyeth, humorously. The druggist, who knew everybody's business, had told him that Miss Palmer, at one time, was the object of every real estate shark in Effingham. And then some one lodged her in the suburbs, and since, she had been left alone. So he wondered whether it was because Miss Palmer, as a lady high in colored society, could not conveniently get such an amount together.
"This man is losing his mind," she said, to the other teacher. The other now regarded Wyeth dubiously. He grinned and then said:
"If you start buying, or biting on one of these easy homes in the west end that you refer to, you are going to lose your head."
"Oh, is that so," Miss Palmer essayed, with much spirit. "Do you suppose, that with me teaching in the schools of this city for thirteen years—" and she had begun at twenty-two, so she told him once—"I do not know something! And if you infer that I haven't a hundred dollars, then you haven't become acquainted with Annie Palmer! Don't you worry about her, for she always has a roll convenient. And you never see any collectors coming here, and leaving without what they came for." She was very dignified now, as she went to the door to answer a knock.
The room in which they sat opened into a small hallway, which was entered from the street by a glass door. It was at this open door, that a man stood, who, however, could not be seen from where Miss Palmer's company sat. He could be heard, though. And they, the company, couldn't help hearing. They were not eavesdropping. It was then that Wyeth learned Miss Palmer was vain. He could not help recalling, that if "no collectors went away without what they came for," it was because they expected nothing when they came. So, when Miss Palmer had completed her trite sentence and sallied forth to answer the knock, they could not help hearing her say very quickly, and with some embarrassment:
"Oh, you are too early. Come back tomorrow. I have my books to deliver this afternoon, and will be ready for you tomorrow, so—"
That was as far as she got. And her company could not be censured for overhearing the rest of it, that is, what the other made in reply. The chances are the other was not aware of their presence, a few feet away, but that is a matter for conjecture. Miss Palmer could be heard attempting to finish with him, without his words that came in a flow. She was nervous, but he would have his say, and so he said, cutting off her discourse: