Martha announced lunch. Max accompanied her on her retreat to the kitchen. Palla loitered, not 49 hungry, nervous and unquiet under the increasing need of occupation for that hot heart of hers.
After a while she went out to the dining room, ate enough, endured Martha to the verge, and retreated to await the evening paper.
Her attorney, Mr. Tiddley, came at three. They discussed quit-claims, mortgages, deeds, surveys, and reported encroachments incident to the decay of ancient landmarks. And the conversation maddened her.
At four she put on a smart mourning hat and her black furs, and walked down to see the bank president, Mr. Pawling. The subject of their conversation was investments; and it bored her. At five she returned to the house to receive a certain Mr. Skidder––known in her childhood as Blinky Skidder, in frank recognition of an ocular peculiarity––a dingy but jaunty young man with a sheep’s nose, a shrewd upper lip, and snapping red-brown eyes, who came breezily in and said: “Hello, Palla! How’s the girl?” And took off his faded mackinaw uninvited.
Mr. Skidder’s business had once been the exploitation of farmers and acreage; his specialty the persuasion of Slovak emigrants into the acquisition of doubtful land. But since the war, emigrants were few; and, as honest men must live, Mr. Skidder had branched out into improved real estate and city lots. But the pickings, even here, were scanty, and loans hard to obtain.
“I’ve changed my mind,” said Palla. “I’m not going to sell this house, Blinky.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake––ain’t you going to New York?” he insisted, taken aback.
“Yes, I am. But I’ve decided to keep my house.”
“That,” said Mr. Skidder, snapping his eyes, “is 50 silly sentiment, not business. But please yourself Palla. I ain’t saying a word. I ain’t trying to tell you I can get a lot more for you than your house is worth––what with values falling and houses empty and the mills letting men go because there ain’t going to be any more war orders!––but please yourself, Palla. I ain’t saying a word to urge you.”
“You’ve said several,” she remarked, smilingly. “But I think I’ll keep the house for the present, and I’m sorry that I wasted your time.”