AS a man thinketh in his heart, so is that man, was the Nazarene’s
succinct announcement of a law as ancient and immutable as the
correlated principles which govern gravity and motion. From the
beginning of things visible, when the thoughts of the great I Am
first began to fashion new and strange creations out of the whirling
fire mist, until now, the thoughts of a God—of a man, continually and
inevitably mould his appearance and the circumstances of his existence.
As there can be no question as to the reality of this fundamental
principle at the root of all phenomena, so there can be no evasion of
its action and effect.
Stephen Jarvis, having successfully achieved wealth by a constant
and unremitting application of his powerful ego to the thoughts of
money-getting by any and all means, looked the part. No man can do
otherwise. Having chosen his rôle, he proceeds to a make-up more
skilful and complete than can be conceived by the bungler in the
actor’s dressing-room. Upon the plastic mask of the body his thoughts
etch themselves, his habits paint themselves, his character blazons
itself, till at middle age, he cannot longer hide himself from the
observant eye of the world. He is, in appearance, in reality, what his
thoughts have made him.
If it be possible to imagine the havoc which the oft-quoted bull in the
china shop would create by a sudden and unpremeditated use of his brute
force, one may, perhaps, conceive of the inward tumult, the confusion,
the very real loss, and consequent anguish entailed upon a man like
Jarvis by the sudden invasion of a genuine passion.
A thousand times he railed at himself, profanely calling himself many
varieties of a fool. Once and again he strove to restore to cold,
passionless order the seething maelstrom of his thoughts. Why, he
demanded fiercely of himself, should he long to possess this girl with
every aching fibre of his being? The mere urge and fever of animal
passion did not explain the matter; there was something deeper, more
elemental still in the fury of the desire which possessed him, which
drove him forth out of his comfortable house by night and by day as
if pursued by the furies. Because Jarvis was a strong man, his nature
hardened by years of stern, unrelaxing self-discipline, the utter rout
and confusion of his cold, passionless self was the more complete and
disastrous. He hated himself for loving a woman who disdained him, and
hating himself, he loved her with a despair akin to torment. That she
was poor, helpless, already fast closed in his savage grip, like a bird
in a snare, he knew; and yet for the first time he dimly realized the
illusive part of her which successfully evaded his grasp, defied his
power, despised his threats. He might, if he would, crush her by main
force; he could not compel her to love him.
The thought of his own strength, helpless before her weakness,
maddened him. Houses, lands, money, had become passively obedient to
the power of his will. He controlled these things, did with them as
he pleased, in effect an overlord, haughty, unbending, merciless; but
this one thing which he had put out his hand to take—carelessly, as
one will pluck a ripe apple from the bough at the languid prompting
of appetite—this girl, who had for years been no more to him than the
birds hopping in the trees outside his window, how and by what means
had she suddenly contrived to gain this monstrous ascendency over him?
What uncanny power in those clear gray eyes of hers had metamorphosed
Stephen Jarvis, cool, middle-aged man of affairs, into the weak
creature he had always despised in his saner moments?
During these days of inward tumult he carried on the dull routine of
his business, forcing himself to the task with all the powers of a will
suddenly turned traitor to its master. In spite of himself he seemed
to see her there in his lonely house over against the sombre rows of
books, her face vividly alive, defiantly youthful. Despite his resolves
she perpetually came between him and the printed page which he strove
to read; worst of all, she haunted his restless slumbers by night, now
pleading with him; now defying him; mocking him with elfin laughter,
as she fled before him, the child in her arms; while he pursued
leaden-footed through uncounted miles of shadowy country.
The two did not meet face to face, while the rains and chilling winds
of April gradually spent themselves, and the grass, illumined with
a thousand cheerful sunbursts of dandelions, grew long under the
blossoming trees. The mated birds sang only at dawn now, being too
busy with the rapturous labors of nest-building to pause for vocal
expression of their gladness. In the fields staid farm-horses indulged
in unwonted gambols and nosed their mates with little whinnying cries;
grazing cattle lifted their heads from the sweet springing grass to
gaze with large wistful eyes at the widespread landscape. Once, long
ago, they had roamed the unfenced pastures of the world in May, herded
cows and yearlings, and the lordly bulls leading on, while the urge and
rapture of the returning sun brooded the earth, compelling it to bring
forth after its kind. Though she did not see him, yet none the less
Jarvis obtruded his harsh visage into Barbara’s thoughts by day and by
night. Nor could a wiser man than Jarvis have guessed that the girl
was literally enfolded in cloudy thought forms, projected toward her
from his own brain, with all the accuracy and certainty of an electric
current traversing the viewless paths of air between wireless stations.
That we do not understand these phenomena with any degree of accuracy
does not render them the less effective.
It was still early in May when Jarvis drove over to inspect a wood-pulp
factory in the neighborhood of Greenfield Centre. Its proprietor had
borrowed capital heavily within the past year, and Jarvis had been
narrowly watching the gradual ebb of the factory’s output. It was the
old story of misapplied energy, paralyzed into inaction by impending
failure. Jarvis scored the luckless proprietor mercilessly during their
brief interview; later he sought the services of Thomas Bellows, the
auctioneer.
“You may sell him out, plant, machinery, and all; reserve nothing,”
Jarvis ordered; and, referring to his book of memoranda, added the date.
Another entry that he saw there met his sombre eyes. He stared at it
frowningly.
“Anythin’ more in my line in the near future?” Mr. Bellows wanted to
know.
He rubbed his hands as he asked the question. The Honorable Stephen
Jarvis was, as he put it, “a stiddy customer and a good one,” being
constantly in need of Mr. Bellows’ services.
“Yes,” said Jarvis, a dull red flush rising in his sallow face. “The
contents of the Preston house, the stock, and implements, must be sold
on June first.”
Mr. Bellows struck one hairy fist into the other by way of preface to
his words. He was not afraid of Stephen Jarvis, being sufficiently
well provided with worldly goods, albeit these were for the most part
second-hand, and in the nature of left-overs from many auctions.
“It seems a pity,” quoth Bellows, “to sell her out. Couldn’t you wait
till fall, say, and give the little Preston girl a chance? I ain’t what
you might call soft m’self; but I’m blamed if I could help feelin’
sorry for the girl when she come in here one day last week t’ engage my
professional services.”
“What is Miss Preston proposing to sell?” demanded Jarvis. Something in
his voice gave Mr. Bellows a curious sensation. He gave Jarvis a sharp
look as he answered.
“Nothing that belongs to you, I reckon.”
“Tell me what it is,” repeated Jarvis. “I’ll be the best judge of
that,” His voice shook, and also the hand which held the leather book
of fateful dates and occasions.
“I’m sorry; but I guess I can’t ’commodate you,” responded the other.
“Perfessional etiquette, you know; in this ’ere case binding.”
“You have no right to refuse,” said Jarvis, and something of the real
nature of his secret thoughts flared up in his eyes. “Everything that
concerns Miss Preston concerns me.”
Mr. Bellows was puzzled.
“Meanin’, of course, that you hold the lien on her prop’ty,” he
hazarded. “But you don’t”—and he paused to chuckle to himself—“hold no
lien on what she’s propos in’ to sell to the highest bidder?”
“What do you mean?” demanded Jarvis.
His tone was menacing, and he fixed angry eyes, red from sleeplessness,
on the old auctioneer.
“You’ll either explain yourself,” he said, “or—you’ll get no more
business from me, to-day or any other day.”
Mr. Bellows expectorated violently in the general direction of the
opposite wall.
“I ain’t,” he declared valiantly, “afeard of no threats, nor yet
of nobody. But I’m goin’ to tell you, ’cause it’s you that’s drove
her to it, an’ you’d ought to know what sort of girl she is. I had
three-quarters of a notion to tell you anyhow, an’ I tol’ m’ wife so,
when I found it was you that held the lien on her house an’ furniture.
Business is business with me as well as any other man; but I’d be
ashamed to drive a woman to the point of sellin’ herself.”
“_Selling herself!_” echoed Jarvis.
The observant eyes of Mr. Bellows were upon him, as he fell back a pace
or two and strove to steady himself.
“That’s what I said. Yes, sir; she asked me right here in this shop to
sell her at public auction. ‘I’ve lost everythin’,’ she says; ‘but I’ve
got myself, an’ I’ll sell that, an’ pay what I owe.’”
“My God!” breathed Jarvis. “I—drove her to it!”
“You’re right, you did,” agreed Mr. Bellows.
“You can’t do it, man. I forbid it!”
“Oh, y’ do; do ye? Wall, I don’t see how you’re going to make out to
prevent it. The girl’s got a right to herself, and I’ve got a right
to——”
“I shall prevent it,” Jarvis interrupted fiercely. “It’s
inhuman—uncivilized, monstrous!”
“Well, that’s the way it struck me—at first,” acquiesced Mr. Bellows;
“but the way she put it up t’ me kind of won me over. She’s a takin’
sort of girl, kind o’ good-lookin’, an’ innercent. W’y, Lord bless
you, she’s no more idee of the way a man—like you, for instance—might
look at it than a child. She wants to work out—for a matter o’ four or
five years, she says; an’ she thinks she c’n get some fool woman to
bid twelve hunderd dollars spot cash fer bein’ sure of a hired girl
all that time—‘W’y,’ I says to her, ‘you might up an’ die,’ ‘Yes,’
she says, ‘so might a horse; but folks hes to hev horses!’ I tell you
she’s cute an’ bright, an’ I’m goin’ to sell her to the highest bidder,
same’s I agreed to.”
Jarvis was silent for a long minute, his eyes fixed unseeingly on the
miscellaneous collection of shabby and broken furniture in the rear of
the shop.
“Is it to be a public sale?” he asked coolly.
“Well, as t’ that, I can’t rightly tell you. I left the advertisin’ o’
the goods, an’ the date o’ sale to the young lady. I reelly hope you
will call it off. I s’pose you c’n easy fix things up so ’t she——”
“Did she ask you to tell me this?” demanded Jarvis suddenly. “Tell me
the facts.”
“Did she ask me—to tell you?” echoed Mr. Bellows wonderingly. “You bet
she didn’t! You wasn’t named betwixt us. I asked her who held the
lien on her prop’ty, an’ she didn’t answer. Thought it was none o’ my
business, likely. I suspicioned it was you, though. You get most of ’em
around these parts.”
Jarvis made no reply. He closed the red leather book, slipped it into
an inside pocket, then deliberately drew on his driving gloves.
“Can you tell me the date of this—this sale?” he asked.
“What you want t’ know for? Thinkin’ of puttin’ in a bid?” chuckled Mr.
Bellows.
Jarvis gave him a terrible look.
“I’d advise you to keep still about this. Don’t attempt to interest
anyone else in Miss Preston’s affairs. Do you hear?”
“I ain’t deef,” responded Mr. Bellows in an aggrieved voice. “‘N’ I
don’t know’s I see what business ’tis of yours, anyhow. Mebbe she’ll
get the money an’ pay you. ’Twouldn’t surprise me if she did. She’s
bound she will, an’ where there’s a will there’s a way, I’ve heard
tell.”
“The date, man; give me the date!”
“Seein’ I’ve told you so much, I s’pose you might as well know; the
sale’s set for the eighteenth.”
“Where?”
“At her house.”
“And you’re actually going to—— No; she’ll never do it. She won’t be
able to bring herself to it.”
“Wall, I’ll bet you ten dollars she will; d’ye take me?”
Jarvis turned without another word and left the place. He suddenly felt
the need of the outdoor air. Barbara’s desperate expedient convinced
him as no words of hers could have done of the hopelessness of his
case. “She hates me,” he told himself; and for the first time he looked
within for a reason for her aversion.
He drove slowly, his thoughts a mad whirl of fury and despair. For the
first time he saw himself as he fancied he must look to her, a man
past his first youth, cold, forbidding, harsh, unlovely. He perceived
with a flash of prescience that she cared nothing for money, save as
it signified the thing she held most dear; nothing for the position,
power, and luxury for which he had sold his honor and his manhood.
Stripped of these things, what must he appear in her eyes? A monster of
selfishness and greed, no less; to be feared, detested, escaped by any
means even to the sacrifice of brain and body. He groaned aloud in the
scorching flame of his humiliation.
He told himself that he would go to her, beg her forgiveness, offer
her all that she had asked for, and more. He would give her the farm
free of all indebtedness. Then he realized, with sickening certainty,
that she would not accept anything from him. He had told her that he
was her master. To escape this slavery she was about to sell herself to
another. The thought was insupportable. Even while he perceived her
perfect ingenuousness and the practical realization of her own worth
which lay beneath this fantastic and seemingly impossible plan of hers,
he sensed its frightful danger. In order to attract bidders she would
be forced to advertise her plans. Who would respond? Who would buy, and
for what purpose?
He whipped his horse to a furious speed and soon reached his house.
The newspapers, unread for days, were piled on a table near his desk.
He seized one, turned to its advertising columns and rapidly reviewed
their contents, then another, and another in rapid succession. At last
his devouring eyes lighted and fastened upon a single paragraph, hidden
among the miscellaneous advertisements where a puzzled proofreader had
doubtless placed it:
“For Sale at Auction [he read]: A young woman in good health, able
and willing to do housework and plain sewing; or could teach a
little child and care for it, would like to secure a position with a
respectable family for a term of years. Her services will be disposed
of at private auction to the highest bidder, for a term of three,
four, or five years. Please communicate with B., _Telegram_.”
Jarvis crushed the paper in his hands savagely, as though he would
destroy the strange little appeal to an unfriendly world. Then he
sought for and read it again, his eyes fixed and frowning.
X
THERE are times when to the unintelligent observer the affairs of this
world appear a hopeless tangle, a web without a pattern, a heap of
unclassified material without an architect, a wild, unmeaning chaos
of things animate and inanimate, all grinding, groaning, clashing
together, sport of the gods or of demons, tending towards nothing,
useless, hideous. But to one who views the world from another and
higher level there sometimes appear illumining hints of harmony and
completeness, tokens of a Master Mind working continually among the
affairs of men and universes, setting all in divine order, either
with or without the understanding and co-operation of the lesser
intelligences.
Thus when Barbara Preston was impelled, she knew not how, to send
forth her strange and piteous little appeal to the unknown, it found
instant response, and proceeded to fit itself into the scheme of things
as perfectly and as cunningly as a tiny bit in a picture puzzle. The
paper in which it appeared passed into the hands of a great number of
persons, who glanced carelessly at its glaring headlines or searched
painstakingly through its losts and founds or things offered, or help
wanted, according to their varied tastes or necessities. On the second
day thereafter, as was also to be expected, the particular edition
containing the queer little unclassified appeal, found its way to many
ash-cans, waste-paper baskets, bureau drawers, and pantry shelves; in
its progress it helped to build numberless fires, it wrapped parcels
of every conceivable shape and size; it fluttered out of car windows,
across decks of steamers and ferry-boats; it floated and dissolved
in many waterways, and finally disappeared, swallowed in the abyss
which appears always to yawn for all things of human creation. Having
vanished mysteriously, unobtrusively, as must every printed page sooner
or later, it nevertheless left its mark on the lives of many. Plans
were changed, voyages undertaken or abandoned, marriages made and
unmade. In a word, prosperity, ruin, joy, sadness, glory, despair—all
came about through its appearance, and persisted in ever widening
circles after it had passed from sight and mind.
Four men and ten women, to be exact, of those who chanced to
notice Barbara’s somewhat absurd little advertisement, cut it
out of the doomed sheet, and placed it in securer quarters, for
further consideration. Of the women four wrote to Barbara asking
for references; of the men, one conceived it to be “a business
opportunity,” not to be written of here; one was a widower blessed with
three small unruly children and little appetite for further matrimonial
experience; another a rich, crabbed old miser, bent on escaping
designing relatives, and the fourth an enterprising young mining
engineer, very deeply in love with a pretty girl and anxious to marry
her and take her with him to a region remote from civilization. The
girl had sighed, demurred, wept—she was of the delicate, clinging vine
variety, and totally unfit for the hard experiences of a mining camp.
But to this fact the amorous engineer was quite naturally oblivious. He
dilated glowingly upon the wonderful efficiency of Chinese servants,
who could, he assured her, beat creation in the expert disguising of
the inevitable “canned goods,” which formed the staple of provision.
Her questions and those of her mother elicited the fact that there were
no women to be hired in any capacity, the wives of the miners, for
the most part, being of a free and independent nature, and, moreover,
entirely occupied with their own affairs.
Mamma looked at Ethel, and Ethel looked at Mamma; Mamma’s glance being
dubious and Ethel’s timidly imploring.
“I couldn’t think of allowing darling Ethel to go away out there to
that dreary, lonely place, with no one to wait on her and take care of
her except a Chinese man,” Mamma said tearfully. She added that Ethel
was delicate, very delicate.
“The mountain air will make her strong,” declared the engineer
enthusiastically. Then he gazed lovingly at the slight, pale,
fashionably gowned young woman who somehow managed to hold the wealth
of his honest affections in her small, highly manicured hands, and in
whom he fancied all possible happiness was embodied “forever” (as he
would have put it).
The end of it all was Mamma’s ultimatum, strongly backed up by Ethel’s
dutiful acquiescence, to the effect that a suitable maid must be
secured; a person who would combine in one the capabilities of cook,
ladies’ maid, seamstress, and nurse, and who would accompany the timid
bride on her long journey away from Mamma’s side.
Imagine, then, the bridegroom’s dilemma, and his anxiety to secure the
advertising young person, who upon further inquiry promised so exactly
to fill the conditions of his happiness.
These persons, therefore, or their representatives foregathered at
the Preston farm on the morning of the eighteenth of May. With them
also appeared a half dozen or so of neighbors, curious and prying,
and the usual complement of shabby individuals, mysteriously aware of
the unusual, and always to be seen at village weddings, funerals, and
public auctions.
Thomas Bellows, alert, business-like, came early in the morning.
“Say, if you want to back out even now,” he said to Barbara, “I c’n
tell th’ folks th’ auction’s off. I guess you’re feelin’ kind of
frightened an’ sorry you was so rash, ain’t you?”
“No,” said Barbara composedly. “I am not—frightened or sorry.” But her
face was unnaturally white, and her eyes, deeply circled with shadowy
blue, belied the statement. “Must I—stand up and be—sold, like—like——”
“No, ma’am!” exclaimed Mr. Bellows decidedly. “Not by a jugful! You’ve
heard from some of the folks interested, you said?”
“Yes,” said Barbara, “I’ve had a number of letters. Two women are
looking for a girl to do all their housework; one needs a nursery
governess—she is going with her family to South America to stay five
years; another requires a reliable person to look after an imbecile
child.”
“Huh!” exploded Mr. Bellows, “that all?”
By way of answer Barbara produced the letter of the elderly man
who required a competent housekeeper, and that of the widower, the
engineer, and the type-written communication of the person who promised
a luxurious home in exchange for “slight occasional services of a sort
easily rendered.”
“Huh!” commented Mr. Bellows, after a deliberate perusal of these
epistles. “Did you tell ’em all to show up to-day?”
He looked sharply at the girl, as he tapped the rustling sheets with
a blunt, tobacco-stained forefinger. “The sale ’ll have to be made
conditional on satisfactory evidence that the highest bidder is an
honest, respectable sort of person.
“The’s folks,” he added darkly, “‘at I wouldn’t sell a cat to—if I
cared shucks ’bout the cat.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Barbara, “to do any sort of work.”
“Mebbe not,” Mr. Bellows acquiesced dryly. “Wall, guess I’ll wait till
I git a good look int’ their faces. I’ll bet,” he added, “‘at I c’n
size ’em up all right. An’ I’ll see t’ it ’at the right bidder gits
the goods. An’ now I’ll tell you what to do. You set here inside the
parlor, same’s if you was the corpse, we’ll say, at a funeral, an’ I’ll
let the bidders come in one b’ one an’ kind o’ size you up. ’Course
they’ve got to know the general specifications, an’ mebbe they’ll want
to ask a few questions. But you’d best let me talk up the article like
I know how. That’s m’ business; an’ I won’t make no fool mistakes.”
Barbara drew a deep breath.
“What,” she faltered, “are you going to say?”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry none ’bout what I’ll say. I’ll crack you
up sky-high same’s I would a first-class horse. All you’ve got to do is
to set right still an’ let me do th’ auctioneerin’. I’ll run you up to
fifteen hunderd, if I kin.”
“Tell them I—I’ll work—hard and faithfully,” faltered Barbara.
She choked a little over the last word, her eyes bright with unshed
tears.
“If I was you, ma’am, I’d put on a red ribbon or—or somethin’
cheerful-lookin’,” advised Mr. Bellows, with awkward sympathy. “I like
a good bright red m’self. An’ say, don’t you worry none. You ain’t
’bliged to accept anybody’s bid, unless you feel like it. I’m goin’ t’
bid ye in m’self, if things don’t go right. Where’s the little boy?” he
asked suddenly.
Barbara controlled herself with an effort.
“In school,” she replied briefly. “He—Jimmy isn’t to know, till—till
afterward.”
“Mebbe you c’n take him along,” hazarded Mr. Bellows, “to—South
America, say, or——”
“I shall leave him here,” Barbara told him with stony calm. “I have
arranged everything.”
A stamping of feet on the porch brought a defiant light to the girl’s
eyes and a scarlet flush to her cheeks; Mr. Bellows surveyed her with
open satisfaction.
“That’s right!” he encouraged her. “Perk right up! You look wo’th th’
money now all right. I’ll open the front door and let the folks pass
right in. Ye don’t need to do a thing but set right still an’ let me
manage things. Biddin’ ’ll begin at ten-thirty, sharp!”
And he bustled away full of importance.
Barbara stood quite still in the spot where he had left her, her eyes
fastened with a kind of fascinated terror upon the groups of persons
coming toward the house. The day was bright and warm and the clumps
of old-fashioned shrubs on either side of the driveway, lilac and
bridal wreath and snowball, were in full bloom. On the other side of
the fence long lines of apple trees laden with odorous pink and white
bloom, lifted their gnarled limbs to the blue sky. Barbara saw a woman
pointing out the trees to the man at her side. She knew the woman,
and fancied she might be speaking of the great yield of fruit to be
expected that year from the once famous Preston orchards.
For two years past the girl had been toiling to bring the trees back to
a thrifty condition; this spring for the first time they promised heavy
returns for all her labors.
She clenched her strong brown hands in a passion of unavailing protest
against the cruel fate which flaunted the myriads of blossoms in her
face to-day.
More people were coming than she had expected. Her face burned
with shame at sight of the two shabby hired hacks among the groups
of pedestrians. A woman in one of them thrust her head out of the
window and asked some questions of the driver. He nodded his head and
presently drew up in front of the house.
“Well, I declare,” she heard in a high-pitched feminine voice, “this
seems like quite a nice place. I thought——”
The buzzing of tongues in the rooms across the narrow hall increased;
the people were congregating there. She could hear the occasional sound
of Mr. Bellows’ creaking boots and his loud authoritative voice, as he
answered questions and arranged the chairs, which two of the shabby men
under his direction were bringing from various parts of the house.
There was something dreadfully suggestive of a funeral in the subdued
hum of voices, the solemnly inquisitive glances levelled towards the
house, and the active, creaking steps of Mr. Bellows. Alone in the
dim old parlor, peering through the shutters, alternately cold with
apprehension and hot with shame, Barbara found herself threatened with
hysterical laughter. They will come in presently and look at me, she
thought, and stiffened into instant rigidity at sound of the creaking
knob.
“Yes, ma’am,” she heard the old auctioneer saying. “You’ll find the
young woman right in here. She’s ready t’ be interviewed, an’ I’ll
guarantee she’s wo’th double the price anybody’ll bid for her. One at a
time, if you please. An’ five minutes only allowed.”
The door opened, and a tall, showily dressed woman entered. She stared
at Barbara through a lorgnette.
“Are you the young woman who is to be sold at auction?” she asked, in
an unbelieving voice. “I am Mrs. Perkins, the housekeeper at Clifton
Grange. I wrote you, with reference to a boy of six. He is large of his
age, and not easy to care for. But his mother, who is an invalid, won’t
hear to his being sent away from home. Yes; I received your references.
But you don’t look old enough to attempt the position I speak of.
But I shall have to bid, I suppose, for we can’t keep a nurse in the
house. They simply will not stay through more than one of his fractious
spells. And of course, if we buy you, you’ll be obliged to remain. Are
you strong in your hands?”
“Yes, very,” said Barbara, conscious of the increasing dryness of her
lips and throat.
“You have rather a nice face,” observed the woman dubiously. “And I do
hope you’re naturally lively and cheerful; you’ll get along better with
_him_ if you are. If he takes a notion to you, he’ll be pretty good
most of the time. But if he don’t—— Are you used to children?”
“I have a brother.”
“How old?”
“Six years.”
“Well, I declare! Quite a coincidence. Is your brother an ordinary
child?”
“He is perfectly normal, if that is what you mean,” Barbara managed to
say. It was being harder than she thought.
“One thing more,” the woman was saying. “You didn’t answer one
question I asked. How did you ever come to think of doing anything
so strange as selling your services at auction? And why should you
demand all the money at once? If your references—your pastor’s letter
and others—hadn’t been so satisfactory, we shouldn’t have thought of
considering you. But we do want to secure someone who will stay, and
of course you’ll be obliged to; though I’m not allowed to bid above a
certain sum. Now I shall expect a truthful answer to——”
Mr. Bellows obtruded his puckered face into the room.
“Time’s up, ma’am,” he said authoritatively. “Other bidders waitin’
their opportunity.”
Barbara could not afterward recall all that passed during the
intolerable period before the bidding began. She was vaguely aware of
women, tall and short, curious, eager, clutching hand-bags, presumably
containing large sums of money. There were men, too. The representative
of the Boston widower, the young mining engineer, more eager and
determined than ever after his short interview with Barbara.
“I’ll bid every cent I can on you,” he assured the girl, with boyish
sincerity. “You’re just the one for us, and I know you’d enjoy the life
out there. We wouldn’t treat you like an ordinary servant; you’d be
more like a friend, I can see that, and I’m sure Ethel—Mrs. Selfridge
[he blushed at his own delightful mendacity] will like you very much.
She’ll want to see you at once, if I am the lucky winner.”
It was all strange, dream-like, and for the most part intolerable.
Barbara raised her heavy eyes once more at the sound of the hard-shut
door. Stephen Jarvis stood looking at her in silence. She felt rather
than saw that some great though subtle change had come over him.
“Why,” he asked in a voice as changed as his looks, “have you done this
thing?”
She did not answer, and he drew a step nearer.
“Tell me,” he said under his breath, “will you give it up? if I—agree
to all that you asked for—time to meet the payments?”
He hesitated as if choosing his words with care.
“You were right about the orchards,” he went on. “There will be a good
yield—more than enough.” He stretched out his hands imploringly, “Spare
me, Barbara,” he entreated. “Don’t put yourself and me to shame before
them all!”
The door swung open a little way.
“Did you say the young woman was in here?” inquired a feminine
voice, sharp with curiosity. Barbara caught a momentary glimpse of a
militant-looking turban glittering with jet beads. Jarvis shut the
door, and stood against it, a tall sombre figure of authority.
“Let me put a stop to it all, Barbara,” he urged. “Barbara!—in God’s
name! I can’t let you do it!”
“It is—too late,” she said, speaking slowly because of the dryness of
her throat and mouth. “Don’t you see—I must go on with it, and I—shall
pay you—every cent!”
He drew a difficult breath that was almost a sob.
“You—will—pay—me,” he repeated, a dreadful self-loathing struggling
with the despair in his eyes. Then he went away, quietly, as he had
come.