I went direct to Mrs. Kingston's. As soon as I walked in with my bag in
my hand, she knew I had come to stay, and she was so delighted that she
seized me in her arms and hugged me, saying I was her "dearest and only
Nora." She took me right up to what she thought were to be my rooms,
but I said I preferred the little one, and after we had talked it over
a bit, she said she agreed with me. It was much better for me to have
only what I myself could afford.
I didn't tell her a word about Lolly. That was my poor friend's secret;
but I told her of my straitened affairs, my poor position and that I
owed money to Bennet. When I ended, she said:
"That boy's an angel. I can't wish you any better luck than that you
get him."
"Get him?"
"He is simply crazy about you, Nora. Can't talk about anything else,
and you couldn't do better if you searched from one end of the United
States to the other. He's of a splendid family, and he's going to make
a big name for himself some day, you mark my words."
I agreed with all her praise of Bennet, but I told her I thought of
him only as a friend, as I did of Fred O'Brien for instance.
She shook her head at me, sighed, and said that she supposed I still
cared for "that man Hamilton," and I didn't answer her. I just sat on
the side of the bed staring out in front of me. After a moment she said:
"Of course, if that's the way you feel, for heaven's sake! let poor
Bennet alone; though if I were you, it wouldn't take me long to know
which of those two men to choose between."
"You'd take Bennet, wouldn't you?" I asked heavily, and she replied:
"You better believe I would!"
"Don't you like Mr. Hamilton?" I asked wistfully.
"I don't entirely trust him," said she. "Candidly, Nora, that was a
nasty trick he tried to play us here. I was 'on to him,' but I didn't
know just where you stood with him, and I'm not in the preaching
business. I let people do as they like, and I myself do what I please;
and then, of course, Lord knows I need all the money I can get." She
sighed. Poor woman, she was always so hard up! "So if he wanted to take
those rooms and pay the price, I wasn't going to be the one to stand
in the way. Still, I was not going to let him pull the wool over your
eyes, poor kiddy."
"I suppose not," I assented languidly. I was unutterably tired and
heartsick, with the long strain of those weeks, and now with this
quarrel with Lolly, and I said, "Yet I'd give my immortal soul to be
with him again just for a few minutes even."
"You would?" she said. "You want to see him as much as all that?"