"Yes," she interrupted again. "Yes, I know you did. But.... And the judge had never heard from you--had never...."
"Heard from me! Do you mean had I sent in an application for the job?"
"Oh, no, no! Not that. But you and he had never been--er--close friends in the old days, when you were here before?"
He could not guess what she was driving at. "Look here, Elizabeth," he said, "I've told you that I scarcely knew Judge Knowles before he sent for me and offered me this place. No man alive was ever more surprised than I was then. Why, I gathered that the judge had talked about me to you before he sent for me. Not as manager here, of course, but as--well, as a man. He told you that I was goin' to call, you said so, and I _know_ you and he had talked and laughed together about my fight with the hens in Judah's garden."
The trouble, whatever its cause, seemed to vanish. She smiled. "Yes, yes," she said. "Of course we had. He did like you, Judge Knowles did, and that was all--of course it was."
"Oh, nothing, nothing. How is Judah? I haven't seen him for two days."
She would not mention Judge Knowles again, but for the remainder of their session with the accounts she was more like her old self than she had been for at least a week, or so it seemed to him.
This was but one of those queer and disconcerting flare-ups of hers. One day, a week or so after she had questioned him concerning his appointment, he happened to be in the Harbor kitchen, and alone--of itself a surprising thing. Elvira Snowden and her group were holding some sort of committee meeting in the sitting room. Elvira was continually forming committees or circles for this purpose or that, purposes which fizzled out at about the third meeting of each group. Esther Tidditt was supposed to be in charge of the kitchen on this particular morning, but she had gone into the committee meeting in order to torment Elvira and Mrs. Brackett, a favorite amusement with her.
So Sears, wandering into the kitchen, happened to notice that the door of the store closet had been left open, and he was standing in front of it idly looking in. He was brought out of his day dream, which had nothing to do with the closet or its contents, by Elizabeth's voice. She had entered from the dining room and he had not heard her.