Poor Mrs. Gerhardt took it nervously; her eyes filled rapidly with tears.
“There, there,” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t cry. You mustn’t forget to get my laundry to-day.”
“Oh no, sir,” she returned, and would have said more had he not walked away.
From this on, Gerhardt heard continually of the fine Senator at the hotel, how pleasant he was, and how much he paid for his washing. With the simplicity of a German workingman, he was easily persuaded that Mr. Brander must be a very great and a very good man.
Jennie, whose feelings needed no encouragement in this direction, was more than ever prejudiced in his favor.
There was developing in her that perfection of womanhood, the full mold of form, which could not help but attract any man. Already she was well built, and tall for a girl. Had she been dressed in the trailing skirts of a woman of fashion she would have made a fitting companion for a man the height of the Senator. Her eyes were wondrously clear and bright, her skin fair, and her teeth white and even. She was clever, too, in a sensible way, and by no means deficient in observation. All that she lacked was training and the assurance of which the knowledge of utter dependency despoils one. But the carrying of washing and the compulsion to acknowledge almost anything as a favor put her at a disadvantage.
Nowadays when she came to the hotel upon her semi-weekly errand Senator Brander took her presence with easy grace, and to this she responded. He often gave her little presents for herself, or for her brothers and sisters, and he talked to her so unaffectedly that finally the overawing sense of the great difference between them was brushed away, and she looked upon him more as a generous friend than as a distinguished Senator. He asked her once how she would like to go to a seminary, thinking all the while how attractive she would be when she came out. Finally, one evening, he called her to his side.
“Come over here, Jennie,” he said, “and stand by me.”
She came, and, moved by a sudden impulse, he took her hand.
“Well, Jennie,” he said, studying her face in a quizzical, interrogative way, “what do you think of me, anyhow?”