Don Pedro has gone to Pierside to search, and my father says that he will send Cockatoo there also to search.”
“Well,” sighed Mrs. Jasher wearily, “I hope that all this trouble will come to an end.
That green mummy has proved most unlucky.
Leave me now, dear girls, as I feel somewhat tired.”
“Good-bye,” said Lucy, kissing her. “I hope that you will be better this evening.
Don’t get up unless you feel quite able.”
“Oh, I shall take my ease in the drawing-room.”
“I thought you always called it the parlor,” laughed the girl.
“Ah,” Mrs. Jasher smiled, “you see I am practicing against the time when I shall be mistress of the Pyramids, You can’t call that large room there a parlor,” and she laughed weakly.
Altogether, Mrs. Jasher impressed both Lucy and Donna Inez with the fact that she was very weak and scarcely able, as she put it, to draw one leg after the other.
Both the girls would have been surprised to see what a hearty meal Mrs. Jasher made that evening, when she was up and dressed.
Perhaps she felt that her strength needed keeping up, but she certainly partook largely of the delicate dinner provided by Jane, who was a most excellent cook.
After dinner, Mrs. Jasher lay on a pink couch in the pink parlor by a splendid fire, for the night was cold and raw with a promise of rain.
The widow had a small table at her elbow, on which stood a cup of coffee and a glass of liquor.
The rose-colored curtains were drawn, the rose-shaded lamps were lighted, and the whole interior of the cottage looked very comfortable indeed.
Mrs. Jasher, in a crocus-yellow tea-gown trimmed with rich black lace, reclined on her couch like Cleopatra in her barge.
In the pink light she looked very well preserved, although her face wore an anxious expression.
This was due to the fact that the mail had come in and the three letters brought by the postman had to do with creditors.
Mrs. Jasher was always trying to make both ends meet, and had a hard struggle to keep her head above water.
Certainly, since she had inherited the money of her brother, the Pekin merchant, she need not have looked so worried.
But she did, and made no disguise of it, seeing that she was quite alone.
After a time she went to her desk and took out a bundle of bills and some other letters, also an account book and a bank book.
Over these she pored for quite an hour.
The clock struck nine before she looked up from this unpleasant task, and she found her financial position anything but satisfactory.
With a weary sigh she rose and stared at herself in the mirror over the fireplace, frowning as she did so.
“Unless I can marry the Professor at once, I don’t know what will happen to me,” she mused gloomily. “I have managed very well so far, but things are coming to a crisis.
These devils,” she alluded to her creditors, “will not keep off much longer, and then the crash will come.
I shall have to leave Gartley as poor as when I came, and there will be nothing left but the old nightmare life of despair and horror. I am getting older every day, and this is my last chance of getting married.
I must force the Professor to have a speedy marriage.
I must!
I must!” and she began to pace the tiny room in a frenzy of terror and well-founded alarm.
As she was trying to calm herself and succeeding very badly, Jane entered the room with a card.
It proved to be that of Sir Frank Random.
“It is rather a late hour for a visit,” said Mrs. Jasher to the servant. “However, I feel so bored, that perhaps he will cheer me up.
Ask him to come in.”
When Jane left, she stood still for a moment or so, trying to think why the young man had called at so untoward an hour.
But when his footsteps were heard approaching the door, she swept the books and the bills and the letters into the desk and locked it quickly.
When Random appeared at the door, she was just leaving the desk to greet him, and no one would have taken the smiling, plump, well-preserved woman for the creature who lately had looked so haggard and careworn.
“I am glad to see you, Sir Frank,” said Mrs. Jasher, nodding in a familiar manner. “Sit down in this very comfortable chair, and Jane shall bring you some coffee and kummel.”
“No, thank you,” said Random in his usual stiff way, but very politely. “I have just left the mess, where I had a good dinner.”
Mrs. Jasher nodded, and sank again on the couch, which was opposite the chair which she had selected for her visitor.
“I see you are in mess kit,” she said gayly; “quite a glorified creature to appear in my poor little parlor.
Why are you not with Donna Inez?
I have heard all about your engagement from Lucy.
She was here to-day with Senorita De Gayangos.”
“So I believe,” said Random, still stiffly; “but you see I was anxious to come and see you.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Jasher equably, “you heard that I was ill.
Yes; I have been in bed ever since yesterday afternoon, until a couple of hours ago. But I am now better. My dinner has done me good. Pass me that fan, please.
The fire is so hot.”
Sir Frank did as he was told, and she held the feather fan between her face and the fire, while he stared at her, wondering what to say.