As Patty afterward told Nan, she was "struck all of a heap."
She had been wondering how she should persuade Mrs. Van Reypen to let her go, and now the lady was voluntarily dismissing her! It was so sudden and so unexpected that Patty showed her surprise by her look of blank amazement.
"I knew you'd feel dreadful about it," went on Mrs. Van Reypen, with real regret in her tone, "but I cannot help it. You are not, by nature, fitted for the position. You are--I don't exactly know how to express it, but you are not of a subservient disposition."
"No," said Patty, "I'm not. But I have tried to do as you wanted me to."
"Yes, I could see that. But you are too high-strung to be successful in a position of this kind. You should be more deferential in spirit as well as in manner. Do I make myself clear?"
"You do, Mrs. Van Reypen," said Patty, smiling; "so clear that I am going to tell you the truth about this whole business. I'm not really obliged to earn my own living. I have a happy home and loving parents. My father, though not a millionaire, is wealthy and generous enough to supply all my wants, and the reason I took this position with you is a special and peculiar one, which I will tell you about if you care to hear."
"You sly puss!" cried Mrs. Van Reypen, with a smile that indicated relief rather than dismay at Patty's revelation. "Then you've been only masquerading as a companion?"
"Yes," said Patty, smiling back at her, "that's about the size of it."
After Patty had told Mrs. Van Reypen the whole story of her efforts to earn her living for a week, and why she had undertaken such a thing, she found herself occupying a changed place in that lady's regard.
"It was fine of you, perfectly fine!" Mrs. Van Reypen declared, "to sacrifice yourself, your tastes, and your time for a noble end like that."
"Don't praise me more than I deserve," said Patty, smiling. "I did begin the game with a charitable motive, but I thought it was going to be easy. When I found it difficult I fear I kept on rather from stubbornness than anything else."
"I don't call it stubbornness, Miss Fairfield; I call it commendable perseverance, and I'm glad you've told me your story. Of course, I wouldn't have wished you to tell me at first, for had I known it I wouldn't have taken you. But you have honestly tried to do your work well, and you succeeded as well as you could. But, as I told you, you are not made for that sort of thing. Your disposition is not that of a subordinate, and I am glad you do not really have to be one. You have earned your salary this week, however, and I gladly pay you the fifteen dollars we agreed upon."