She set the coffee-pot back upon the stove with a little crash, and, looking at him in a desperate anxiety, began to twist her dainty apron between her fingers without any consciousness of what she was doing.
“Why—why—” she stammered; but she knew what he was going to say, and that was why she had been more and more nervous. “Hadn’t—perhaps—perhaps we’d better get the—the things moved to the little new home first, George. Let’s—”
He interrupted quietly, though at her phrase, “the little new home,” his pungent impulse was to utter one loud shout and run. “It was about this new place that I wanted to speak. I’ve been thinking it over, and I’ve decided. I want you to take all the things from mother’s room and use them and keep them for me, and I’m sure the little apartment will be just what you like; and with the extra bedroom probably you could find some woman friend to come and live there, and share the expense with you. But I’ve decided on another arrangement for myself, and so I’m not going with you. I don’t suppose you’ll mind much, and I don’t see why you should mind—particularly, that is. I’m not very lively company these days, or any days, for that matter. I can’t imagine you, or any one else, being much attached to me, so—”
He stopped in amazement: no chair had been left in the kitchen, but Fanny gave a despairing glance around her, in search of one, then sank abruptly, and sat flat upon the floor.
“You’re going to leave me in the lurch!” she gasped.
“What on earth—” George sprang to her. “Get up, Aunt Fanny!”
“I can’t. I’m too weak. Let me alone, George!” And as he released the wrist he had seized to help her, she repeated the dismal prophecy which for days she had been matching against her hopes: “You’re going to leave me—in the lurch!”
“Why no, Aunt Fanny!” he protested. “At first I’d have been something of a burden on you. I’m to get eight dollars a week; about thirty-two a month. The rent’s thirty-six dollars a month, and the table-d’hote dinner runs up to over twenty-two dollars apiece, so with my half of the rent—eighteen dollars—I’d have less than nothing left out of my salary to pay my share of the groceries for all the breakfasts and luncheons. You see you’d not only be doing all the housework and cooking, but you’d be paying more of the expenses than I would.”