Part 26 (2/2)

A kindly policeman had caught sight of me on the curbing and signaled for the traffic to stop. As I started across, I glanced up at the automobile before which I had to pa.s.s. Something familiar about the chauffeur caught my attention. I looked into the open back of the car.

Mrs. Sewall's eyes met mine. She didn't smile. There was no sign of recognition. We just stared for a moment, and then I hurried along.

I didn't think she knew me. My illness had disguised me as if I wore a mask.

I was, therefore, surprised the next morning to receive a brief note from Mrs. Sewall asking me to be at my room, if possible, that evening at half-past eight.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE POT OF GOLD

Esther was out canva.s.sing for suffrage. She canva.s.sed every other evening now. She had not touched the ma.n.u.script of her book for weeks.

Esther could earn a dollar an evening at canva.s.sing. One evening's canva.s.sing made a dozen egg-nogs for me. Esther poured them down my throat in place of chicken and fresh vegetables. I couldn't stop her. I wasn't allowed even to say ”Thank you.”

”I'd do the same for any such bundle of skin and bones as you,” she belittled. ”Don't be sentimental. You'd do it for me. We'd both do it for a starved cat. It's one of the unwritten laws of humanity--women and children first, and food for the starving.”

She was out ”egg-nogging,” as I used to call it, when Mrs. Sewall called. I had the room to myself. Mrs. Sewall had never visited my quarters before. I lit the lamp on our large table, drew up the Morris-chair near it, straightened our couch-covers, and arranged the screen around the chiffoniers. Mrs. Sewall was not late. I heard her motor draw up to the curbing, scarcely a minute after our alarm clock pointed to the half-hour.

Marie accompanied her mistress up the one flight of stairs to our room.

I heard them outside in the dim corridor, searching for my name among the various calling cards tacked upon the half-dozen doors. It was discovered at last. There was a knock. I opened the door.

”That will do,” said Mrs. Sewall, addressing herself to Marie, who turned and disappeared, and then briefly to me, ”Good evening.”

”Good evening, Mrs. Sewall. Come in,” I replied. We did not shake hands.

I offered her the Morris-chair.

”No,” she said, ”no, thank you. This will do.” And she selected a straight-backed, bedroom chair, as far away as possible from the friendly circle of the lamp-light. ”I'm here only for a moment,” she went on, ”on a matter of business.”

I procured a similar straight-backed chair and drew it near enough to converse without too much effort. It was awkward. It was like trying to play an act on a stage with nothing but two straight chairs in the middle--no scenery, nothing to elude or soften. Mrs. Sewall, sitting there before me in her perfect black, a band of white neatly edging her neck and wrists, veil snugly drawn, gloves tightly clasped, was like some hermetically sealed package. Her manner was forbidding, her gaze penetrating.

”So this is where you live!” she remarked.

”Yes, this is where I live,” I replied. ”It's very quiet, and a most desirable location.”

”Oh! Quiet! Desirable! I see.” Then after a pause in which my old employer looked so sharply at me that I wanted to exclaim, ”I know I'm a little gaunt, but I'm not the least disheartened,” she inquired frowning, ”Did you remain in this quiet, desirable place all summer, may I ask?”

”Well--not all summer. I was away for three weeks--but my room-mate, Miss Claff, was here. It isn't uncomfortable.”

”Where were you then, if not here?”

”Why, resting. I took a vacation,” I replied.

”You have been ill,” Mrs. Sewall stated with finality, and there was no kindness in her voice; it expressed instead vexation. ”That is evident.

You have been ill. What was the trouble?”

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