"You know, I've often thought I'd look up that word. I see it every once in a while. Pessimist. But what's the use? You don't need words like that to sell land."
She had been stupid again, aiming over his head. He was right. You didn't need words like that to sell land. You didn't need any of the things she liked, to sell land. She was a fool. She was tired. But she returned to the Haas sale. The subject must be handled carefully, for Hutchinson was too good a salesman to offend, though he was lazy. Where was Haas's money? Hutchinson replied that it was banked in the old country, Germany.
"Germany! And he's written for it? For the love of—! You grab the machine and chase out there and make him cable. Pay for the cable. Send it yourself. Tell 'em to cable the money. Haven't you seen the papers?"
Hutchinson, surrounded by scattered sporting sheets, stared up at her in amazement.
"Don't you know Austria sent an ultimatum to Servia? Haven't you ever heard of the Balkan Wars? Don't you know if Russia—Good Lord, man! And you're letting that money lie in Germany waiting for a letter? Beat it out there. Make him cable. I'll pay for it myself. Good Lord, Hutchinson—a fifty acre sale! Don't stop to talk. The cable-office closes at six. Hurry! And look out for that rear left tire!" she opened the door to call after him.
The brief flurry of excitement had raised in her an exhilaration that vanished in a sense of futility and shame. "I'm getting so I swear like—like a land-salesman!" she said to herself, straightening her hat before the mirror. There was a streak of dust on her nose, and she wiped it off with a towel, and tucked up straggling locks of hair. In the dark strand over one temple a few white lines shone like silver. "I'm wearing out," she said, looking at them and at her skin, tanned to a smooth brown. Nobody cared. Why should she carefully save herself? She shut the closet door on her mirrored reflection, locked the office door, and went home.
The small, brown bungalow looked at her with empty eyes. The locked front door and the dry leaves scattered from the rose-vines over the porch gave the place a deserted appearance. At all the other houses on the street the doors were open; children played on the lawns, wicker tables and rocking-chairs and carelessly dropped magazines made the porches homelike. There was pity in her rush of affection for the little house; she felt toward it as she might have felt toward an animal she loved, waiting in loneliness for her coming to make it happy.
The door opened wide into the small square hall, and in the stirred air a few rose petals drifted downward from the bowl of roses on the walnut table. She unlatched and swung back the casement windows in the living-room. Then she dropped her hat and purse among the cushions on the window-seat, and straightening her body to its full height, relaxed again in a long, contented sigh. A weight slipped from her spirit. She was at home.
Her lingering glance caressed the rose-colored curtains rustling softly in the faint breeze, the flat cream walls, the brown rugs, the brick hearth on which piled sticks waited for a match. There was her wicker sewing-basket, and beyond it the crowded book shelves. Here was the quaint, walnut desk she had found at a second-hand store, and the big, mannish chair with the brown leather cushions. It was all hers, her very own. She had made it. She was at home, and free. The silence around her was like cool water on a hot face.
In the white-tiled bathroom, with its yellow curtains, yellow bath rug, yellow-bordered fluffy bath-towels, she washed the last memory of the office from her. She reveled in the daintiness of sheer, hand-embroidered underwear, in the crispness of the white dress she slipped over her head. She put on her feet the most frivolous of slippers, with beaded toes and high heels.