“Well, well,” he commented, on seeing her—she was in moody gray in the bargain—“you don’t mean to tell me you’re worrying about anything, are you?”
“Oh, Mr. Cowperwood,” she explained, pathetically, “I have had so much trouble since I saw you. You heard of Major Hagenback’s death, didn’t you?” Cowperwood, who had heard something of the story from Colonel Gillis, nodded. “Well, I have just been notified by the police that I will have to move, and the landlord has given me notice, too. If it just weren’t for my two children—”
She dabbed at her eyes pathetically.
Cowperwood meditated interestedly.
“Haven’t you any place you can go?” he asked.
“I have a summer place in Pennsylvania,” she confessed; “but I can’t go there very well in February. Besides, it’s my living I’m worrying about. I have only this to depend on.”
She waved her hand inclusively toward the various rooms. “Don’t you own that place in Pennsylvania?” he inquired.
“Yes, but it isn’t worth much, and I couldn’t sell it. I’ve been trying to do that anyhow for some time, because Berenice is getting tired of it.”
“And haven’t you any money laid away?”
“It’s taken all I have to run this place and keep the children in school. I’ve been trying to give Berenice and Rolfe a chance to do something for themselves.”