"'Wm. M.'!" he repeated, looking confusedly at her, and then at the paper. "Oh,--it's nothing." He tore the paper into small pieces, and went and dropped them into the fire. When Mrs. Lapham came into the room in the morning, before he was down, she found a scrap of the paper, which must have fluttered to the hearth; and glancing at it she saw that the words were "Mrs. M." She wondered what dealings with a woman her husband could have, and she remembered the confusion he had shown about the paper, and which she had thought was because she had surprised one of his business secrets. She was still thinking of it when he came down to breakfast, heavy-eyed, tremulous, with deep seams and wrinkles in his face.
After a silence which he did not seem inclined to break, "Silas," she asked, "who is 'Mrs. M.'?"
He stared at her. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't you?" she returned mockingly. "When you do, you tell me. Do you want any more coffee?"
"No."
"Well, then, you can ring for Alice when you've finished. I've got some things to attend to." She rose abruptly, and left the room. Lapham looked after her in a dull way, and then went on with his breakfast. While he still sat at his coffee, she flung into the room again, and dashed some papers down beside his plate. "Here are some more things of yours, and I'll thank you to lock them up in your desk and not litter my room with them, if you please." Now he saw that she was angry, and it must be with him. It enraged him that in such a time of trouble she should fly out at him in that way. He left the house without trying to speak to her. That day Corey came just before closing, and, knocking at Lapham's door, asked if he could speak with him a few moments.
"Yes," said Lapham, wheeling round in his swivel-chair and kicking another towards Corey. "Sit down. I want to talk to you. I'd ought to tell you you're wasting your time here. I spoke the other day about your placin' yourself better, and I can help you to do it, yet. There ain't going to be the out-come for the paint in the foreign markets that we expected, and I guess you better give it up."
"I don't wish to give it up," said the young fellow, setting his lips. "I've as much faith in it as ever; and I want to propose now what I hinted at in the first place. I want to put some money into the business."
"Some money!" Lapham leaned towards him, and frowned as if he had not quite understood, while he clutched the arms of his chair.
"I've got about thirty thousand dollars that I could put in, and if you don't want to consider me a partner--I remember that you objected to a partner--you can let me regard it as an investment. But I think I see the way to doing something at once in Mexico, and I should like to feel that I had something more than a drummer's interest in the venture."