“I got ten thousand dollars; but the legacy is not to be paid till next summer.”
“Well, but–look here: you could borrow on it any time you wanted.”
She shook her head gravely. “No; for I owe it already.”
“Owe it? The whole ten thousand?”
“Every penny.” She paused, and then continued abruptly, with her eyes on his face: “I think Gus Trenor spoke to you once about having made some money for me in stocks.”
She waited, and Rosedale, congested with embarrassment, muttered that he remembered something of the kind.
“He made about nine thousand dollars,” Lily pursued, in the same tone of eager communicativeness. “At the time, I understood that he was speculating with my own money: it was incredibly stupid of me, but I knew nothing of business. Afterward I found out that he had NOT used my money–that what he said he had made for me he had really given me. It was meant in kindness, of course; but it was not the sort of obligation one could remain under. Unfortunately I had spent the money before I discovered my mistake; and so my legacy will have to go to pay it back. That is the reason why I am trying to learn a trade.”
She made the statement clearly, deliberately, with pauses between the sentences, so that each should have time to sink deeply into her hearer’s mind. She had a passionate desire that some one should know the truth about this transaction, and also that the rumour of her intention to repay the money should reach Judy Trenor’s ears. And it had suddenly occurred to her that Rosedale, who had surprised Trenor’s confidence, was the fitting person to receive and transmit her version of the facts. She had even felt a momentary exhilaration at the thought of thus relieving herself of her detested secret; but the sensation gradually faded in the telling, and as she ended her pallour was suffused with a deep blush of misery.
Rosedale continued to stare at her in wonder; but the wonder took the turn she had least expected.
“But see here–if that’s the case, it cleans you out altogether?”
He put it to her as if she had not grasped the consequences of her act; as if her incorrigible ignorance of business were about to precipitate her into a fresh act of folly.
“Altogether–yes,” she calmly agreed.
He sat silent, his thick hands clasped on the table, his little puzzled eyes exploring the recesses of the deserted restaurant.
“See here–that’s fine,” he exclaimed abruptly.
Lily rose from her seat with a deprecating laugh. “Oh, no–it’s merely a bore,” she asserted, gathering together the ends of her feather scarf.
Rosedale remained seated, too intent on his thoughts to notice her movement. “Miss Lily, if you want any backing–I like pluck– -” broke from him disconnectedly.
“Thank you.” She held out her hand. “Your tea has given me a tremendous backing. I feel equal to anything now.”
Her gesture seemed to show a definite intention of dismissal, but her companion had tossed a bill to the waiter, and was slipping his short arms into his expensive overcoat.
“Wait a minute–you’ve got to let me walk home with you,” he said.
Lily uttered no protest, and when he had paused to make sure of his change they emerged from the hotel and crossed Sixth Avenue again. As she led the way westward past a long line of areas which, through the distortion of their paintless rails, revealed with increasing candour the disjecta membra of bygone dinners, Lily felt that Rosedale was taking contemptuous note of the neighbourhood; and before the doorstep at which she finally paused he looked up with an air of incredulous disgust.
“This isn’t the place? Some one told me you were living with Miss Farish.”
“No: I am boarding here. I have lived too long on my friends.”
He continued to scan the blistered brown stone front, the windows draped with discoloured lace, and the Pompeian decoration of the muddy vestibule; then he looked back at her face and said with a visible effort: “You’ll let me come and see you some day?”
She smiled, recognizing the heroism of the offer to the point of being frankly touched by it. “Thank you–I shall be very glad,” she made answer, in the first sincere words she had ever spoken to him.