“I have had it some time,” she said. “I was keeping it to surprise you!”
His breath came quick. How much would she tell him? He looked at it critically. “Was it a bargain?” he asked..
“No--Not a bargain.” And she stroked the edge of the fur. “I saw it and liked it--and I got it.”
“That’s right. That’s the way to buy all your clothes.” He looked at it a minute lightly and turned away.
She could not have guessed from his gesture that he was disappointed, but her eyes followed him. “I hope you won’t think I paid too much--for it?”
“What did you pay?” he asked. His back was toward her.
“I paid--two hundred dollars,” she said. The words came lightly, and there was a little pause.
“No, I don’t think that was too much.” He had turned and was looking at her--straight. “I would have paid more than two hundred--to give it to you,” he said slowly.
She made no reply, but her eyes regarded him gravely over the edge of the collar. Wrapped in the coat, she seemed for a moment the woman of the alcove.
She returned the look a minute--and turned away slowly and went out.
Eldridge walked to the table and stood looking down.... He had given her, in all, not more than two hundred and fifty dollars. Did she expect him--to believe--that all the things that had come into the house since had not cost more than fifty dollars?
It was as if she flaunted it at him--as if she wanted him to know that it could not have been _his_ money that bought it!... So that was it! She had seen--she had guessed the change in him--and this was her guard? She would force him to know--to accuse her.
Old Barstow’s words came to him mockingly: “No--she will not contest it. She wants--to be--free.”
BUT if she wished him to know she gave no other sign.
She spent the money that he gave her, and when it was gone she asked him for more.
Only once she had said as she took it: “You are sure it is right for me to spend this?”
And he had replied: “When you ask for anything I cannot give you I will let you know.”
She had said nothing. She had not even glanced at him. But somehow he fancied that she understood him.
He grew to know, by intuition, the days when she would go to Merwin’s.
As he left the house he would say: “She will be there--” And when he dropped in, in the afternoon, he did not even need to glance at the alcove on the right. He would sit down quietly in his place across the aisle, glad to be with her.