"It wasn't to make more money," Isabelle protested, remembering the day at the Farm when the two men had walked back and forth, delaying luncheon, while they heatedly discussed Steve's determination to change his business.
"He had this reform virus in his system, too! … Well, he is bookkeeper, now, for some little down-town concern at eighteen hundred a year. All he can get these days. The railroads are discharging men all the time. He might be earning six thousand in the position I offered him then. Do you think Alice and the boys will be any better off for his scruples? Or the country?"
"Poor Alice! … Are they still living in the house at Bryn Mawr?"
"Yes, I believe so. But Steve told me he couldn't carry the mortgage after the first of the year,—would have to give up the house."
"I must go out there to-morrow," she said quickly; and after a time she added, "Don't you think we could do something for them, John?"
Lane smiled, as if the suggestion had its touch of irony.
"Why, yes! I mean to look into his affairs when I can find the time….
I'll see what I can do."
"Oh, that is good!" Isabelle exclaimed warmly. It was like her husband, prompt generosity to a friend in trouble. And this matter brought husband and wife closer in feeling than they had been since her arrival.
"Ready money is a pretty scarce commodity," Lane remarked; "but I will see what can be done about his mortgage."
It was not easy, he wished his wife to know, even for the strong to be generous these days, thanks to the reformers, and the "crazy man in Washington," with whom he suspected she sympathized.