"Tell him just how much you intend to 'soak' your prospective roomer
for these palatial chambers."
She started to say, "Twenty-five dollars a week," which was what she
had told me she expected to charge, when I saw him make a sign to her,
and she hesitated. Then I knew he intended to get her to name a cheap
price just for me, and pay the difference himself. But now I was too
quick for him. He had actually deceived me about those clothes. I had
not the remotest idea till months afterward that he had paid for them
and for many other things I subsequently bought, or thought I bought;
but Mrs. Kingston had already told me the price of that room. So I said:
"It's no use. I know the price."
"Yes, but for a friend," he replied, "I'm sure Mrs. Kingston would
make--er--a considerable reduction."
She said nothing. I don't know how she felt. Of course she knew that I
was in love with him, but, as she told me afterward, she couldn't quite
make out just what our relations were.
"That's all very well," I said, "but Mrs. Kingston has to get her rent."
Then he said:
"Well, but--er--I'm sure her practice is going to soar from now on. A
great lawyer like Mrs. Kingston need not rent rooms at all."
Still she said nothing; but I saw her watching us both. He went on to
urge me to have these rooms, but of course the idea was absurd. It was
really provoking for him to keep pressing me to have things I simply
could not afford and did not greatly want. I said all this. Besides,
I added, it would be foolish for me to make any change at this time.
Things were uncertain with me at the yards, now that Fred was leaving,
and I should have to speak to Lolly, anyhow.
He argued that if I expected to write, I should have to move. No one
could write in such disturbing circumstances. Of course that was true
enough, and I said I'd talk it over that night with Lolly.
He took out some money then, and wanted to pay Mrs. Kingston so much
down on the rooms, when I exclaimed that even if I did leave Lolly, I
didn't mean to take these rooms, but the little one, if Mrs. Kingston
was still willing to let me have it. She said she certainly was; that
she badly wanted me to come. Both she and Mrs. Owens (the woman with
her) needed a young person about the place to make them forget what
old fogies they were, and that it would be like a real home to have me
there, and we'd all be very happy.
It ended like this: _he_ took that suite of rooms. He said they'd be
there for me to have at any time I wanted them. I told him it was just
a waste of money, for I simply would not let him pay for my room any
more than I would let him pay for my clothes, and that was all there
was to it.
He smiled curiously at that, and asked Mrs. Kingston what she thought
of my clothes. She said:
"I haven't been able to take my eyes off them. Nora is _wonderful_!
Does it seem possible that clothes can make such a difference?"
She wanted to know where I got them. I told her, and how cheap they
were. She was amazed at the price, and Mr. Hamilton went over to the
window and looked out. How clearly this all comes back to me now!
All the way back to my rooms he argued with me about the matter. He
said if I had a pleasant place like that to live in, I'd soon be
writing masterpieces (ah, he knew which way my desires ran!), and soon
I'd not have to work in offices at all. To take rooms like those, he
said, was really an investment. Business men all did things that way.
It was part of the game. He wanted me to try it, for a while, and at
last I said in desperation:
"What's the use of talking about it? I tell you, I haven't got the
money."
Then he said (I never knew a man who could so persist about a thing on
which he had set his heart):
"Now, look here, Nora, I've got more money than is decent for any one
person to have, and I _want_ to spend it on _you_. I want to give you
things--comforts and luxuries and all the pretty things a girl like
you ought to have. If you could see yourself now, you'd realize what a
difference even clothes make. And so with other things. I want to take
hold of you and make you over. I never wanted to do anything so much in
my life before. Now you're going to be a good girl, aren't you, and not
deny me the pleasure--the real _joy_ it gives me to do things for you,
dear little girl?"
By this time I was nearly crying, but I set my teeth together, and
determined not to be won over to something I knew was not right.
"You told me once," I said, "that all any one had ever wanted of you
was your money--your 'dirty money,' you called it; and now, just
because I won't take it from you, you get angry with me."
"Well, but, confound it! I didn't mean you then."
"Oh, yes, you did, too; because you said I'd be sending for more money
in a week, and you said that I was made to have it, and men would
give--"
He put a stop to my too vivid recollections.
"But, _child_, I had no _idea_ then of the kind of girl you were,"--he
lowered his voice, and added tenderly, he was trying so hard to have
his way!--"of the exceptional, wonderful little girl you are."
"But I wouldn't be exceptional or wonderful," I protested, "if I took
your money. I'd be common. No; I'm not going to let people say you
_keep_ me!"
"Where did you hear that word?" he demanded roughly.
"From Lolly--and the girls at the Y. W. C. A. Oh, don't you suppose I
know what that means?" I was looking straight at him now, and I saw his
face turn red, but whether with anger or embarrassment, I do not know.
He said in a sort of suppressed way:
"Don't you know that men who keep women are their lovers?"