"You don't have to support poetesses if they are the right sort. All I
want is enough money to carry me to Chicago. I'll get work of some kind
then."
"Well, let's see," he said. "I'll get you your ticket, and then you'd
better have, say, a hundred dollars to start with."
"No! no!" I cried out. "I couldn't use a whole hundred dollars."
"What?"
"I never had that much money in my life," I said. "I shouldn't know
what to do with it."
He laughed shortly.
"You'll know all right," he said, "soon after you get to Chicago." Then
he added almost bitterly, "You'll be writing to me for more within a
week."
"Oh, Mr. Hamilton, I won't do that! I'll never take any more from
you--honestly I won't."
"Nonsense!" he returned lightly. "And now come along. You have time for
a bite of luncheon before your train leaves."
He ordered very carefully a meal for us, and took some time to decide
whether I should have something to drink or not. He kept tapping the
pencil on the waiter's pad and looking at me speculatively, and at last
he said:
"No, I guess not this time."
So I got nothing to drink.
It was a fine luncheon, and for the first time I had soft-shell crabs;
also for the first time I tasted, and liked, olives. Mr. Hamilton
seemed to take a grim sort of pleasure in watching me eat. I don't know
why, I'm sure, unless it was because I frankly did not know what most
of the dishes were, and I was helplessly ignorant as to which was the
right fork or knife to use for this or that dish. I think I ate my
salad with my oyster-fork, and I am sure I used my meat-knife for my
butter. All these intricate things have always bothered me, and they do
still.
I suppose my eyes were still considerably swollen from the crying I had
done, and, besides, I had slept very little after that awakening. Mr.
Hamilton made me tell him all over again, and in minute detail, just
what happened, and when I told him how I cried the rest of the night in
'Mandy's arms, he said:
"Yes, I can see you did," which made me say quickly, I was so anxious
to look my best before him:
"I look a fright, I know."
Whereupon he slowly looked at me and said, with a suggestion of a smile:
"You look pretty good to me," and that compensated for everything.
He gave me the hundred dollars while we were in the dining-room, and
advised me, with a slight smile, to hide it in "the usual place."