She signed and sealed the letter and sat staring at it unhappily, and once she made a motion to tear it up. Luke would be furious if he knew, and even though she had asked that her communication be regarded as confidential, it would doubtless come out in time.
Luke, driven, cumbered Luke, whom she was already treating so shabbily, who was enslaving himself to put the mill on the right side of the ledger again, needed every hand he had on his pay roll—even Gloriana-Virginia’s small claws—and she was deliberately making trouble for him. He did not mean to be hard. He was hounded by old Mr. ’Gene Carey, that mild-mannered, moist-eyed old hypocrite, who, in his turn, was being relentlessly goaded by Peter Parker of Pasadena, worthless young waster, lolling in luxury (she grew almost lyric, after the fashion of the heated weeklies) on the cruel profits of a business he had never seen.
She felt no resentment toward Luke, only a remorseful realization that his hands were tied, and she must act, now, for them both, and she ran swiftly to the letter box at the corner, dropped in her communication and came back with her chin held high.
The surcease from all her sorrows was her house. It received her like a lover. Sometimes, in the restful dining room, in the quaint chamber, establishing herself for a quiet evening in the sitting room where now the Persian rug seemed to lie relaxed and at ease, she had the happy fancy that her mother, pale Effie, was there, moving through the transformed house with her frail and hesitating gait. And sometimes there came likewise the thought that Dr. Darrow, crusty and choleric, was stamping after her, hotly and profanely disapproving, loudly lamenting his golden oak and the robust flowers of the carpets.
At those times she flung herself hastily into his books or the vehement weekly, or slipped down the hill to hear Black Orlo’s feverish philippics, which always gave her a sort of Charlotte Corday thrill.
Mr. ’Gene Carey was home again, a wholesome color in his face and a spring in his step, when he received the news of old Ben Birdsall’s death, and he grieved over it sincerely. “Poor old Ben! Looks like he couldn’t stand prosperity! One of those old truck horses that ought to die in harness! Yes, sir, if he’d stayed on here at the Altonia with us, old Ben’d been good for fifteen, twenty years yet, but sitting in the sunshine, picking oranges off the tree, watching the gusher gush, he just naturally slowed down and stopped, that’s what he did! Poor old Ben! He was a faithful soul if ever there was one! I miss him. By the eternal, I miss him! Used to look at me with those old eyes of his ... kind of like a dog that trusts you....” He winked and blew a blast into his handkerchief.
Nancy, who came for him every afternoon, patted and soothed him. He mustn’t take it like that; wasn’t it fine that old Ben had so much happiness before he went? She lifted her lovely hazel eyes to Luke for confirmation of her comforting theory but Luke was not sympathetic. He had no solemn comments to make whatever, and made an excuse to leave the office at once.
His attitude fretted the old gentleman. “Funny thing, Lady-bird, that Luke can’t show a little feeling over poor old Ben! I wanted to shut the mill down for a day, in memory of him, or half a day, anyhow, but Luke won’t hear of it, and he hasn’t a good word to say of the old chap. Can’t understand it. Why, if he was here, you might say it was jealousy, Luke being so ambitious to do everything his own way, but a dead man, Lady-bird! It’s—it’s hard! I don’t like it!”
He told his young superintendent that he didn’t like it—told him with vigor and feeling, in the middle of a driving, high-keyed afternoon, in spite of his daughter’s coaxing hand on his arm.
Luke Manders started to speak excitedly, got hold of himself, paced up and down the room for a moment and then faced his employer gravely.