"I suppose I look a sight, but poor Mrs. Sharp was so upset! She broke down and cried and of course I've been crying, too. I'm so thankful it's turned out all right for her. Poor thing, I never saw her in such a state!"
"They've got five children to feed. I guess it would make a powerful lot of difference to them," he said quietly.
"I wish you'd told me all about it before. I felt that something was worrying you, and I didn't know what." There was a pause. "Why _didn't_ you tell me?"
"If I saved the crop, there didn't seem any use fussing, and if I didn't, you'd know soon enough."
"How could you bear to let me put those dreadful flowers here in the house?" she said, pointing to the bowl on the table.
"Oh, I guess I didn't mind, if it gave you any pleasure. You didn't know they was only a weed and a poisonous one for us farmers. You thought them darned pretty."
"That was very kind of you, Frank," said Nora. Her voice shook a little in spite of her effort to control it.
"I guess it's queer that a darned little flower like that should be able to do so much damage."
That subject exhausted, there came another pause. He was very evidently waiting her lead. Could Eddie have told him anything about the news from England? No, he hadn't had any opportunity. Besides it would have been very unlike Eddie, who, as a general rule, had a supreme talent for minding his own affairs.
"How did it happen that you didn't tell me that you had written to Eddie?"
She waited a few moments to make sure that her voice was quite steady:
"Frank, Eddie brought me some letters from home--from England, I mean--to-day. I've had an offer of a job back in England."
He got up slowly and went over to the corner where the broom hung to get some straws to run through the mouthpiece of his pipe. His face was turned from her, so that she could not see that he had closed his eyes for a moment and that his mouth was drawn with pain.
When he turned he had resumed his ordinary expression. His voice was perfectly steady when he spoke:
"An offer of a job? Gee! I guess you'll jump at that."
"It's funny it should have come just when you had been talking of my going away."
Not even a comment. Oh, why didn't he say that he would be glad to have her gone, and be done with it! Anything, almost, would be easier to bear than this total lack of interest. She tried another tack.