“Good!” she said swiftly, and patted him quickly, decisively, on the arm: “God bless you, darling! I knew you would!”
They finished lunch in a sullen and unhappy silence. After lunch Eugene went upstairs, packed and closed his valise and came down and paid his bill. When he got outside, Elinor was sitting in the car, waiting for him. Starwick had not yet come down.
“Put your suitcase in behind,” she said curtly, “and do tell Frank to hurry if he’s coming. There’s not much time.”
“Where’s Ann?” he said. “Is she coming with us to the station?”
“My dear,” she said coldly, “I haven’t the remotest idea. Why don’t you ask her yourself if you want to know?”
He flushed again; and then with a feeling of painful embarrassment and constraint, said:
“Elinor—if you don’t mind—that is—I’d like—”
“What?” she said curtly, impatiently, and sharply, turning in her seat and looking at him. “You’d like what?”
“If you don’t mind,” he said, gulping with embarrassment, and at the same moment enraged that he should feel so—
“—My money!” he blurted out.
“What?… What?” she demanded again, in a brusque, puzzled tone. “Oh!” she cried with a sudden air of enlightenment. “Your money!… You mean those express cheques you gave me to keep for you?”
“Yes,” he said miserably, feeling an inexplicable shame and embarrassment at having to ask for his own money, and inwardly cursing the folly which, in the rush of affection that followed their recent reconciliation, had caused him to give every cent he had into her keeping—“if you don’t mind—that is—”
“But of course, my child!” cried Elinor, with a fine air of astonishment. “You shall have it at once!”—and opening her purse she took out the thin little, black folder that contained all the money he had left—three express cheques of twenty-dollar denomination. “Here you are, sir!” she said, and gave it to him in such a way that he felt again a sense of guilt and shame as if he were acting meanly towards her or were taking something that did not belong to him.
“I’m sorry,” he stammered apologetically, “—sorry to have to ask you for it, Elinor—but you see it’s all I’ve got left.”
“It is?” she said curtly. “What did you do with all the rest that you had when we met you?”
