"The furniture's safe," I said; "it won't walk away."
"Of course it's safe," he answered with a suspicion of a sneer; "but when'll it be paid for?"
"I don't know; go away!" I said. "I've written to my father."
The fellow looked at me with open admiration.
"Better 'tend to this thing; better write again to--your father," he said and walked off, leaving me cold and tremulous with rage.
I must have imagined the pause, the inflection; but he has me under surveillance. Like a thief!
I flew to the dining-room and swallowed a glass of sherry, for I was faint and quivering; but before I had turned from the sideboard Cadge bounced into the room, tearing through the flat to find me, and stopped to stare, open-eyed.
"Oh, don't preach! I've just been having such a time!"
"Everybody has 'em; I've had fifty a year for fifty years. And I don't mind your drowning sorrow in the flowing bowl, either. But do it like a man, in company. Honest now, Helen."
She changed the subject abruptly to the errand that had brought her; but, before she went away, she looked curiously at the sideboard and said:----
"Mercy, no! Scarcely at table, even. Why I used to be shocked to see how things to drink are thrust upon women, even in department stores. But they're not all deadly; there's 'creme de menthe' now--the pep'mint extract Ma used to give me for stomach-ache."
Cadge laughed with me, but she turned quickly grave again.
"Mind what I tell you, Princess," she said, "and never, never drink even 'pep'mint extract' in the house like that, alone; if you do, I see your finish; reporters learn a thing or two."
She's right--for ordinary women. But I told her the truth; I don't care for wine. I've seen girls flushed at dinner, but I know too much of physiology, and I care too much for my beauty.
Emergencies--oh! I could have named to her the very day I first tasted wine. It was here in the Nicaragua, the day Darmstetter----
Well, well,--I mustn't think about that. I can't understand why I don't hear from Father. Impossible to make him see how different are my present tastes and pressing needs from those I brought from home. I hope he won't delay long about the money.
My position is becoming intolerable. I owe the butcher, grocer, furniture dealer, photographer--and the milliner is the worst of all. The money I got from the _Star_ is filched from me by people who need it far less than I. Why, I even owe money to the maids, and I can't discharge either of them, because I'd have to pay her. But they must somehow be sent away.