ON THE WAY HOME
Frances wrote him enthusiastically from London. In her big, sprawling
handwriting the letter covered eight pages. Toward the end she
added:--
I miss you quite a lot, Don, dear, especially on foggy days. Please
don't work too hard, and remember that I am, as always,
Your FRANCES.
Well, that was something to know--that she was always his, even in
London. London was a long way from New York, and of course he could
not expect her to go abroad and then spend all her time writing to
him. He went up to the club after reading this, and wrote her a letter
twenty pages long. It was a very sentimental letter, but it did him
good. The next day he returned to the office decidedly refreshed. In
fact, he put in one of the best weeks there since he had taken his
position. When Saturday came he was sorry that it was a half-holiday:
he would have liked to work even through Sunday.
He left the office that day at a little before twelve, and stood on
the corner waiting for Miss Winthrop. They had lunched together every
day during the week; but he had not mentioned meeting her to-day,
because he had come to the conclusion that the only successful way to
do that was to capture her. So she came out quite jauntily and
confidently, and almost ran into him as he raised his hat.
She glanced about uneasily.
"Please--we mustn't stand here."
"Then I'll walk a little way with you."
So he accompanied her to the Elevated station, and then up the steps,
and as near as she could judge purposed entering the train with her.
He revealed no urgent business. He merely talked at random, as he had
at lunch.
She allowed two trains to pass, and then said:--
"I must go home now."
"It seems to me you are always on the point of going home," he
complained. "What do you do after you get there?"
"I have a great many things to do," she informed him.
"You have dinner?"
"Yes."
"Sometimes I have dinner too," he nodded. "Then what do you do?"
"I have a great many things to do," she repeated.
"I don't have anything to do after dinner," he said. "I just wander
around until it's time to go to bed."
"That's a waste of time."
"I know it. It's just killing time until the next day."
She appeared interested.
"You have many friends?"
"They are all in London and Paris," he answered.
"You have relatives."
"No," he answered. "You see, I live all alone. Dad left me a house,
but--well, he didn't leave any one in it except the servants."
"You live in a house all by yourself?"
He nodded.
Mr. Pendleton lived in a house! That was a wonderful thing to her. She
had almost forgotten that any one lived in whole houses any more. She
was eager to hear more. So, when the next train came along she stepped
into it, and he followed, although she had not intended to allow
this.
"I wish you would tell me about your house," she said wistfully.
So, on the way uptown, he tried to describe it to her. He told her
where it was, and that quite took away her breath; and how his father
had bought it; and how many rooms there were; and how it was
furnished; and, finally, how he came to be living in it himself on a
salary of twenty-five dollars a week. As she listened her eyes grew
round and full.
"My, but you're lucky!" she exclaimed. "I should think you'd want to
spend there every minute you could get."
"Why?" he asked in surprise.
"Just because it's your house," she answered. "Just because it's all
your own."
"I don't see it," he answered.
"And what do _you_ want of ten thousand a year?" she demanded. "You
can live like a king on what you're drawing now."
"You don't mean that?" he asked.
"I don't mean you ought to give up trying for the big jobs," she said
quickly. "You ought to try all the harder for those, because that's
all that's left for you to try for. With everything else provided, you
ought to make a name for yourself. Why, you're free to work for
nothing else."
"On twenty-five dollars a week?"
"And a house that's all your own. With a roof over your head no one
can take away, and heat and light--why, it's a fortune and your
twenty-five so much extra."
"Well, I have to eat," he observed.
"Yes, you have to eat."
"And wear clothes."
She was doing that and paying her rent out of fifteen.
"I don't see what you do with all your money," she answered.
At this point she stepped out of the train, and he followed her. She
went down the stairs to the street, and he continued to follow. She
was on her way to the delicatessen store to buy her provisions for the
night and Sunday. Apparently it was his intention to go there with
her. At the door of the little shop she stopped.
"I'm going in here," she informed him, as if that concluded the
interview.
He merely nodded and opened the door for her. She was beginning to be
worried. At this rate there was no knowing but what he might follow
her right home.
"I'm going to buy my provisions for to-morrow," she further informed
him.
"I suppose I must get something too," he answered. "Can't I buy it
here?"
"It's a public place," she admitted.
"Then come on."
So they entered together, and Hans greeted them both with a smile, as
if this were the most natural thing in the world. But Miss Winthrop
herself was decidedly embarrassed. This seemed a very intimate
business to be sharing with a man. On the other hand, she did not
propose to have her plans put out by a man. So she ordered half a
pound of butter and a jar of milk and some cheese and some cold roast
and potato salad for that night and a lamb chop for Sunday, and one or
two other little things, the whole coming to eighty-five cents.
"Now," he asked, when she had concluded, "what do you think _I'd_
better order?"
Her cheeks were flushed, and she knew it.
"I'm sure I don't know," she answered.
He saw some eggs.
"I might as well have a dozen eggs to start with," he began.
"Is there only yourself?" she inquired.
"Yes," he answered.
"Then I should think a half-dozen would do."
"A half-dozen," he corrected the order.
Then he thought of chops.
"A pound or two of chops," he ordered.
"If you have eggs for breakfast, you will need chops only for dinner.
Two chops will be enough."
Before she was through she had done practically all his ordering for
him,--because she could not bear to see waste,--and the total came to
about one half what it usually cost him. He thought there must be some
mistake, and insisted that Hans make a second reckoning. The total
was the same.
"I shall trade with you altogether after this," he informed the
pleased proprietor.
There were several packages, but Hans bound them together into two
rather large-sized ones. With one of these in each hand, Don came out
upon the street with Miss Winthrop.
"I'm going home now," she announced.
"There you are again!" he exclaimed.
"But I must."
"I suppose you think I ought to go home."
"Certainly."
"Look here--doesn't it seem sort of foolish to prepare two lunches in
two different places. Doesn't it seem rather wasteful?"
Offhand, it did. And yet there was something wrong with that argument
somewhere.
"It may be wasteful, but it's necessary," she replied.
"Now, is it?" he asked. "Why can't we go downtown somewhere and lunch
together?"
"You must go home with your bundles," she said, grasping at the most
obvious fact she could think of at the moment.
"If that's the only difficulty, I can call a messenger," he replied
instantly.
"And lose all you've saved by coming 'way up here? I won't listen to
it."
"Then I'll go home with them and come back."
"It will be too late for lunch then."
"I can take a taxi and--"
"No wonder your salary isn't enough if you do such things!" she
interrupted. "If you had ten thousand a year, you would probably
manage to spend it all."
"I haven't a doubt of it," he answered cheerfully. "On the other hand,
it would get me out of such predicaments as these."
Apparently he was content to stand here in front of the little shop
the rest of the afternoon, debating this and similar points. It was
necessary for her to take matters into her own hands.
"The sensible thing for you to do is to go home and have lunch," she
decided.
"And then?"
"Oh, I can't plan your whole day for you. But you ought to get out in
the sunshine."
"Then I'll meet you in the park at three?"
"I didn't say that."
"Will you come?"
She was upon the point of saying no, when she made the mistake of
meeting his eyes. They were honest, direct, eager. It was so easy to
promise whatever they asked and so hard to be always opposing them.
She answered impulsively:--
"Yes."
But she paid for her impulse, as she generally did, by being sorry as
soon as she was out of sight of him. The first thing she knew, she
would be back where she was a month ago, and that would never
do--never do at all.