"Yes."
"Wait a minute." She concluded her business with Joe; finished it
briskly and to her own satisfaction. With her bright brown eyes and
her alert manner and her quick little movements she made you think of a
wren--a businesslike little wren--a very early wren that is highly
versed in the worm-catching way.
At her next utterance he was startled but game.
"Have you had your lunch?"
"Why, no; I----"
"I've been down here since seven, and I'm starved. Let's go and have a
bite at the little Greek restaurant around the corner. A cup of coffee
and a sandwich, anyway."
Seated at the bare little table, she surveyed him with those
intelligent, understanding, kindly eyes, and he felt the years slip
from him. They were walking down the country road together, and she
was listening quietly and advising him.
She interrogated him gently. But something of his old masterfulness
came back to him. "No, I want to know about you first. I can't get
the rights of it, you being here on South Water, tradin' and all."
So she told him briefly. She was in the commission business.
Successful. She bought, too, for such hotels as the Blackstone and the
Congress, and for half a dozen big restaurants. She gave him bare
facts, but he was shrewd enough and sufficiently versed in business to
know that here was a woman of established commercial position.
"But how does it happen you're keepin' it up, Emma, all this time?
Why, you must be anyway--it ain't that you look it--but----" He
floundered, stopped.
She laughed. "That's all right, Ben. I couldn't fool you on that.
And I'm working because it keeps me happy. I want to work till I die.
My children keep telling me to stop, but I know better than that. I'm
not going to rust out. I want to wear out." Then, at an unspoken
question in his eyes: "He's dead. These twenty years. It was hard at
first, when the children were small. But I knew garden stuff if I
didn't know anything else. It came natural to me. That's all."
So then she got his story from him bit by bit. He spoke of the farm
and of Dike, and there was a great pride in his voice. He spoke of
Bella, and the son who had been killed, and of Minnie. And the words
came falteringly. He was trying to hide something, and he was not made
for deception. When he had finished:
"Now, listen, Ben. You go back to your farm."
"I can't. She--I can't."