This day he was not thinking about her; he was busy in his office,
dictating letters to his spinster stenographer, the sound of his
drawling, hesitating voice filling the little room. A window was open to
let in the sweet May air, and a breeze ruffled his hair. As usual he was
in his shirt sleeves.
The door was open, and in she came; said, gently:
“Mr. Petersen!”
“Miss Minnie!” he cried, jumping up, and according to his custom,
hurrying into his respectable dark coat. “Well, well, Miss Minnie!”
She shook her head.
“Mrs. Naylor,” she corrected him, with a smile; the very same pleasant,
kindly smile. He stared at her, smiling himself, and shaking his head.
“Well, well!” he repeated.
She hadn’t changed much; she was stouter and a trifle more serious, that
was all. He observed that she was in mourning, wearing a black blouse
and skirt somewhat like his housekeeper but dowdier and cheaper.
Nevertheless, she didn’t look _poor_; somehow you didn’t pity her.
“Mrs. Naylor,” he repeated.
“I’m a widow,” she said, simply. He answered, in very much the same
simple and friendly way--
“I’m sorry.”
Then she said, smiling again, but with a hint of melancholy:
“I’ve come to you for advice again. I look on you as an old friend, Mr.
Petersen.”
“I am!” he assured her.
“I know it!”
He held out a huge hand.
“Sit down,” he said. “Miss Layne, you shall have a holiday in honour of
Mrs. Naylor’s return.”
The spinster stenographer, disapproving, suspicious, with a comically
false smile, put on a pinched little jacket and a hat and jerked out,
nodding in duty bound to this odious widow.
“Now!” said Mr. Petersen.
Without too much emphasis, in just the quiet, well-bred way he admired,
she told him her little story.
“My husband had a great deal of trouble ... in business, and so on. He
was English, and I don’t think he understood our ways very well. So ...
when he ... died, there wasn’t anything. Nothing at all. And I have a
little girl.... I sold everything I could, and then--somehow--I wanted
to come back here--where father was born.... And I remembered all your
kindness and I thought perhaps you’d help me--advise me.”
“To the very best of my ability,” he said, soberly.
“I thought of a boarding-house. Would there be a good chance for one
here?”
Still the same idea; perhaps it is an obsession with the womanly woman.
Mr. Petersen suggested a thorough discussion of her problem from every
side.
“Do you mind, then, if I bring little Sandra in?” Minnie asked. “I
didn’t want to bother you----”
“By all means. Where is she? I’ll fetch her.”
“Downstairs,” said Minnie. “Just inside the door.”
She was standing there with a patience that touched his heart, a thin,
tall, little girl-baby, with limpid grey eyes and straight black hair.
One of those indescribably appealing children, filled with a divine
pathos, a soul-stirring beauty. She was very quiet, too subdued, he
thought, and too fragile. She took his hand willingly and toiled up the
stairs at his side; she said nothing, except:
“Is Mother there?”
“Yes, pet,” he answered.
He knew at that instant that he was going to marry Minnie and take care
of her and of this little creature too. He looked down upon its dark
head with a new and poignant tenderness. He would be its father.
The child ran up to Minnie and stood beside her, looking up into her
face calmly. And she looked back at it with an expression he had never
conceived her capable of: rapturous, idolatrous passion. Her proud eyes
questioned him, and he willingly responded.
“She is beautiful,” he said.
“I can’t help thinking so,” said Minnie.
Their business discussion amounted to very little. No one could discuss
business with Minnie, anyway. It was an absurd idea.
Simply, Mr. Petersen asked if he couldn’t lend her a bit until she had
“looked round,” and without demur Minnie accepted. In some intangible
but perfectly plain way she suggested that she accepted only because of
her little Sandra and that accordingly the acceptance was justified, if
not sanctified. Mr. Petersen was ready to believe this.
“And now,” he said, when the money had changed hands, “there’s the
problem of finding a place for you to live.”
He suggested several places for her to telephone, and she did so. The
extreme propriety of both of them forbade his appearing in any such
transaction. There was nothing suitable to be had; as a very last resort
he proposed the Eagle House, and there she was obliged to go.
“I’ll call this evening, if I may,” he said, “to see if you’re all
right.”