“In future,” said Lola coldly, “I shall make my purchases from better established places of business. I am not used to being annoyed. Maria!” She stepped to the door and called.
“Ef you would led me try once more I would not trouble you about the bill, Miss Barnhelm. Et es nod from these people who haf money that we want it, it es only from dose that haffen’t it.”
This piece of worldly philosophy, however, made no impression upon Lola, who smiled calmly and haughtily, enjoying the poor woman’s servile repentance, until Maria came in answer to her call.
“The door, Maria.” And Madam Zelya, unable to find any trace of softening in Lola’s face, was forced to follow Maria, her mind divided between grief over the loss of a good customer, and joy over the collection of a bill, that the instinct of her Hungarian Jew ancestors had warned her was to be classed as doubtful.
As they left the room, Lola stepped to the safe, meaning to replace the rest of the money, but as she saw it in her hand, and thought of other little accounts that pressed for settlement, she hesitated. “I don’t see what difference it makes,” she thought. “Dr. Crossett can easily give father more, and they would probably make just as great a row over the loss of the six hundred and seventy-five, as they will now about the whole amount.”
So she put it in her bag, locked the safe and stepped into the dining-room, just as coffee was brought on. She had grown very fond of coffee of late, strong and black, with no cream or sugar. It seemed to tone her up. She was perfectly well, but she had grown to depend upon the pleasant exhilaration. She drank two cups with them. Dr. Crossett thought as he watched her that never in all his experience had he seen a young woman in such splendid physical condition. Her father smiled on her proudly, as she met and routed the Doctor’s affectionate teasing, and as for John, he was already so completely in love that he was quite satisfied just to sit and watch her. She had changed greatly of late, there could be no doubt of that. The girl was gone, but in her place was this brilliant, fascinating woman. John thought himself a very lucky man.
CHAPTER X
MARIA ACCUSED
“This,” said Dr. Crossett to Lola, as they sat together in the window, looking out at the river and the endless procession of automobiles below them, “this is good! It is not Paris, but it is good!”
“The only reason you won’t admit it’s better than Paris,” laughed Lola, “is because you are cross about having had such a dreadfully bad dinner.”