She smiled at him warmly; there was something so real about him when he talked that way.
But his look then frightened her. It seemed for an instant as though he would brush the tiny table aside and seize some invisible thing by the throat. Then he said, cutting off each word short: “Young Lady, what do you think of this? I'm worth more 'an a million dollars—and my wife gets up at five o'clock every morning to do washing and scrubbing.”
“Oh, it's not that she has to,” he answered her look, “but she thinks she has to. See? Once we were poor. For twenty years we were poor as dirt. Then she did have to do things like that. Then I struck it. Or rather, it struck me. Oil. Oil on a bit of land I had. I had just sense enough to make the most of it; one thing led to another—well, you're not interested in that end of it. But the fact is that now we're rich. Now she could have all the things that these women have—Lord A'mighty she could lay abed every day till noon if she wanted to! But—you see?—it got her—those hard, lonely, grinding years took her. She's”—he shrunk from the terrible word and faltered out—“her mind's not—”
There was a sobbing little flutter in Virginia's throat. In a dim way she was glad to see that the girls were going. She could not have them laughing at him—now.
“Well, you can about figure out how it makes me feel,” he continued, and looking into his face now it was as though the spirit redeemed the flesh. “You're smart. You can see it without my callin' your attention to it. Last time I went to see her I had just made fifty thousand on a deal. And I found her down on her knees thinking she was scrubbing the floor!”
Unconsciously Virginia's hand went out, following the rush of sympathy and understanding. “But can't they—restrain her?” she murmured.
“Makes her worse. Says she's got it to do—frets her to think she's not getting it done.”
“But isn't there some way?” she whispered. “Some way to make her know?”
He pointed to the large boxes. “That,” he said simply, “is the meaning of those. It's been seven years—but I keep on trying.”
She was silent, the tears too close for words. And she had thought it cheap ambition!—vulgar aspiration—silly show—vanity!