Exactly why Annan chose to lunch at home did not occur to him until, arriving there, Mrs. Sniffen handed him a note and announced the departure of Eris Odell.
“What!” he said irritably, “has she gone?”
“About eleven, Mr. Barry. And would you believe that child would ask me to take five dollars for making her bed? And she with scarce a penny. What’s one ’undred and twenty dollars in New York? I could ha’ birched her——”
“Give me the note,” he interrupted, disappointed. Because that was why he had come home to lunch,—to see this youngster who had so ungratefully and rudely departed.
He went upstairs to his room, seated himself, slit the envelope with a paper cutter, and leisurely but sulkily unfolded the sheet of note paper within.
A hundred-dollar bank note fell to the floor.
“Dear Friend,” he read,—a rural form of address that always annoyed Annan,—“please do not be offended if I leave without awaiting your return. Because I feel keenly that I ought not to impose upon your great kindness any longer.
“I am at a loss to express my gratitude. Your goodness has stirred my deepest sensibilities and has imprinted upon my innermost mind a sense of obligation never to be forgotten.
“I shall always marvel that so well known and successful a man could find time to trouble himself with the personal embarrassment of an insignificant stranger.
“What you have done for me is so wonderful that I can only feel it but cannot formulate my feeling in words.