Mrs. Hibberdell was glad. At least there would be no disturbance here. She feared Carlotta, feared Eugene, but she saw no reason for complaint. In her presence all was seemingly formal and at times almost distant. She did not like to say to her daughter that she should not come to her own home now that Eugene was here, and she did not like to tell him to leave. Carlotta said she liked him fairly well, but that was nothing. Any married woman might do that. Yet under her very eyes was going forward the most disconcerting license. She would have been astounded if she had known the manner in which the bath, Carlotta's chamber and Eugene's room were being used. The hour never struck when they were beyond surveillance but what they were together.
Eugene grew very indifferent in the matter of his work. From getting to the point where he was enjoying it because he looked upon it as a form of exercise which was benefiting him, and feeling that he might not have to work indefinitely if he kept up physical rehabilitation at this pace, he grew languid about it and moody over the time he had to give to it. Carlotta had the privilege of a certain automobile and besides she could afford to hire one of her own. She began by suggesting that he meet her at certain places and times for a little spin and this took him away from his work a good portion of the time.
"You don't have to work every day, do you?" she asked him one Sunday afternoon when they were alone. Simpson and Mrs. Hibberdell had gone out for a walk and they were in her room on the second floor. Her mother's was on the third.
"I don't have to," he said, "if I don't mind losing the money they pay. It's fifteen cents an hour and I need that. I'm not working at my regular profession, you must remember."
"Oh, chuck that," she said. "What's fifteen cents an hour? I'll give you ten times that to come and be with me."
"No, you won't," he said. "You won't give me anything. We won't go anywhere on that basis."
"Oh, Eugene, how you talk. Why won't you?" she asked. "I have lots of it—at least lots more than you have just now. And it might as well be spent this way as some other. It won't be spent right anyhow—that is not for any exceptional purpose. Why shouldn't you have some of it? You can pay it back to me."
"I won't do it," said Eugene. "We won't go anywhere on that basis. I'd rather go and work. It's all right, though. I can sell a picture maybe. I expect to hear any day of something being sold. What is it you want to do?"
"I want you to come automobiling with me tomorrow. Ma is going over to her sister Ella's in Brooklyn. Has that shop of yours a phone?"
"Sure it has. I don't think you'd better call me up there though."