“I owe my club a duty.”
“I know,” he went on smoothly, “that you’re an awful screw, when there’s a dollar in sight. How much do you want?”
My silence should have warned him, but he was too self-absorbed to feel anything but his own mood.
“How much do you want?” he repeated, and I still sat without speaking, though the room blurred, and I felt as if I were stifling. “The day I’m elected to the Philomathean, I’ll give you”—
I rose and interrupted him, saying, “Mr. Whitely, if you wish me to leave your house and employment, you can obtain my absence in an easier way than by insulting me.”
For a moment we faced each other in silence, and then he rose. “Hereafter, Dr. Hartzmann, you will pay those dues yourself,” he said in a low voice, as he moved towards the door.
I only bowed, glad that the matter was so easily ended; and for nearly two months our relations have been of the most formal kind that can exist between employer and employed.
Far more bitter was another break. When the moment of farewell came, that evening, I waited to put you and Mrs. Blodgett into your carriages, and while we were delayed in the vestibule you thanked me again for the pleasure of the previous afternoon, and then continued: “I understand why you did not feel able to please Mrs. Blodgett about the concert. But won’t you let me acknowledge the pleasure of yesterday by sending you a ticket? I have taken a number, and as all my circle have done the same, I am finding it rather difficult to get rid of them.”
“That’s all right, Maizie,” interjected Mrs. Blodgett, who had caught, or inferred from an occasional word that she heard, what you were saying. “We took an extra ticket, and I am going to use the doctor for an escort that evening.”
“I thank you both,” I answered, “but I shall not be able to attend the concert.”