“Don’t be offended. You must never mind what I say. I’m not half so
interesting if I stop and think.”
I looked down at her and was weak enough to smile. Her face was so
unlike her words, so serenely fine, almost noble.
“That’s right, smile,” she cried gaily. “You’ll get used to me when you
know me better. And you’re going to do that, Mrs. Drake, for I warn you
now, we’ll soon be friends.”
Before I could answer she had turned and run down the stairs to the
street.
I let myself into the sitting-room and took off my things. I have neat
old-maidish ways, cultivated by years of small quarters. Before I can
sit with an easy conscience I have to put away wraps, take off shoes,
pull down blinds and light lamps. When I had done this I sat before the
register and thought of Miss Harris.
There was something very unusual about her--something more than her
looks. She has a challenging quality; maybe it’s magnetism, but
whatever it is that’s what makes people notice her and speak of her.
Nevertheless, she was not _de notre monde_--I apologize for the phrase
which has always seemed to me the summit of snobbery, but I can’t think
of a better one. It was not that she was common--that didn’t fit her
at all--unsensitive would be a fairer word. I felt that very strongly,
and I felt that it might be a concomitant of a sort of crude power. She
didn’t notice my reluctance at all, or I had a fancy that she might
have noticed it and didn’t care.
I was sitting thus when Mrs. Bushey came bounding ebulliently in. Mrs.
Bushey bounds in quite often, after physical culture, or when the
evenings in the other house pall. She wore a red dress under a long
fur-lined coat and stopped in pained amaze when she saw me crouched
over the register.
“Cold!” she cried aghast, “don’t tell me you haven’t enough heat?”
It was just what I intended telling her, but when I saw her
consternation I weakened.
“It _is_ a little chilly this evening,” I faltered, “but perhaps--”
Mrs. Bushey cut me short by falling into the Morris chair as one become
limp from an unexpected blow.
“What am I to do?” she wailed, looking up at the chandelier as though
she expected an answer to drop on her from the globes. “I’ve just got
four tons of the best coal and a new furnace man. I pay him double what
any one else on the block pays--_double_--and here you are _cold_.”
I felt as if I was doing Mrs. Bushey a personal wrong--insulting her as
a landlady and a woman--and exclaimed earnestly, quite forgetting the
night Roger and I had frozen in concert.
“Only this evening, Mrs. Bushey, I assure you.”
But she was too perturbed to listen:
“And I try so hard--I don’t make a cent and don’t expect to. I want
you all to be comfortable, no matter how far behind I get. That’s my
way--but I’ve always been a fool. Oh, dear!” She let her troubled gaze
wander over the room-- “Isn’t that a beautiful mirror? It came from the
Trianon, belonged to Marie Antoinette. I took it out of my room and put
it in here for you. What _shall_ I do with that furnace man?”
I found myself telling her that an arctic temperature was exactly to
my taste, and making a mental resolution that next time Roger came he
could keep on his overcoat, and after all, spring was only six months
off.
“No,” said Mrs. Bushey firmly, “I’ll have it right if I go to the
poorhouse, and that’s where I’m headed. I had a carpenter’s bill
to-day--twenty-six dollars and fourteen cents--and I’ve only eleven in
the bank. It was for your floor”--she looked over it--“I really didn’t
need to have it fixed, it’s not customary, but I was determined I’d
give you a good floor no matter what it cost.”
I was just about suggesting that the carpenter’s bill be added to my
next month’s rent when she brightened up and said an Italian count had
taken the front room on the floor above.
“Count Mario Delcati, one of the very finest families of Milan. A
charming young fellow, charming, with those gallant foreign manners.
He’s coming here to learn business, American methods. I’m asking him
nothing--a young man in a strange country. How could I? And though
his family’s wealthy they’re giving him a mere pittance to live on.
Of course I won’t make anything by it, I don’t expect to. His room’s
got hardly any chairs in it, and I can’t buy any new ones with that
carpenter’s bill hanging over me.” She smoothed the arm of the Morris
chair and then looked at the floor. “It’s really made your floor look
like parquet.”