The goings forth and the comings back of the head of a suburban household are the pendulum by which all the rest of the time swings. Polly Townsend, in a short white duck skirt, with a cheerful red bow in her light hair, was putting the finishing touches to the dinner-table in the now permanent absence of the “girl,” and listening for the returning footstep of her husband with more than her usual sense of expectation, which lately had been braced to divine what that footstep might imply as to the day’s success or non-success.

Mr. Townsend was “out of a position,” a stage of tenuous existence over which self-respecting families draw a decent veil. In the three months of his detachment he had experienced all its usual effects in his relations with a comfortably occupied world—the sympathetic indignation and inefficient, helpful efforts in his behalf, with the haphazard, temporary “jobs,” the gradual subsidence of poignant interest, and, finally, the semi-irritation at his “not having anything yet,”[188] which would really seem to imply a culpable torpidity on his part to all but the wife who alone knew the struggle which he no longer heralded abroad. Her indignation daily burned stronger against the friends who couldn’t seem to do anything for him, but who were themselves successful without half of his talent.

She herself had done what she could, besides looking after the house and the two children. For ten weeks she had secretly given music lessons to the child of a friend, steadily refusing payment until the end of the term, and she now held in the little bag at her belt the princely sum of seven dollars and fifty cents, all her own, and destined for great uses. Mrs. Townsend was, above all things, a woman of action, and to resolve was to dare immediately.

It was with a faint sigh of farewell to a hope barely entertained that she heard the aggressive briskness of her husband’s tread, and she answered the florid cheerfulness of his greeting with the studied carelessness of custom in the well-worn words:

“Nothing new to-day, I suppose?”

“No, nothing new,” said Mr. Townsend heartily. He was a large, attractive-looking man, with the slightly greyish hair which had handicapped him so much in getting a position,[189] though his wife was eagerly ready to tell every one how really young he was.

“Dinner’s about ready, I see; well I’m ready for it.” He relapsed into a chair by the table as he spoke. “Where are the children?”

“They’re spending the evening at the Mays’,” said his wife, bringing in the hot dishes from the kitchen and taking quick note of his unconscious lassitude and the new wrinkles in his broad forehead. “We can have a quiet, little cozy time all by ourselves. Would you mind tying the thread around this rag on my finger? I sliced it when I was peeling the potatoes.”

“You dash at everything so,” remonstrated the husband, accomplishing the thread-tying slowly and painstakingly. “I should think you would learn to be more careful after you had burned yourself so badly. Stand still. Don’t be in such a hurry; the dinner can wait.”

“No, it can’t,” said Mrs. Townsend, escaping to the head of the table. “Have you seen any one to-day?”

“About seven hundred people.”

“Francis! You know what I mean. Have you seen any one I know?”

“No. Yes, I did see Harry Jenkins for a moment.”

[190]

“What did he have to say?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, Francis!” Mrs. Townsend looked despairing. “Why do you make me drag things out of you this way? Didn’t he tell you anything about his wife’s return from England——?”

“Not a word.”

“And you didn’t ask——?”

“My dear Polly, I saw him for about two seconds, crossing the street on his way to the tailor’s. If that can give you any satisfaction you’re welcome to it.”

“I wish you could go to the tailor’s,” said Mrs. Townsend deeply, with a sudden moistening of her luminous grey eyes. “I wish—I wish your clothes weren’t getting so—so——”

“It will soon be cold enough for my overcoat,” said her husband consolingly.

“Yes, I know, but—Francis! I’ve been wanting to speak to you for ever so long. Those trousers you have on—really, you know they were always perfectly hideous. I nearly cried when you brought them home. How a man who has always dressed as well as you have could ever have chosen those things! Of course, I know you only bought them because they were so cheap, but there’s always a choice. And now they’re so shabby[191] it makes me positively sick to see you in them. Last Sunday when you passed the plate in church—well, you thought I went out because I was faint, but it was simply because I couldn’t sit there and see you walk up the aisle and stand in front of the whole congregation until that anthem was finished.”

“Let’s change the subject,” said Mr. Townsend. “It’s a fine day.”

“No, I won’t change the subject. Do you know they’re advertising trousers at Brooker’s—such a good place!—for six dollars. Mrs. Bond says her husband got two pairs there yesterday—the very best quality. And—I want you to buy a pair to-morrow. She says they wear forever.”

“Where could I get the six dollars?” asked Mr. Townsend facetiously.

“I knew you’d say that. Oh, Francis! I have the money right here. I earned it myself.” Mrs. Townsend rose and swept her chair down beside her husband. “I never told you a word, but I’ve been giving Alice May music lessons ever since—Francis! Now see here, you’re not going to mind! How perfectly absurd! It’s been a real pleasure. Mrs. May paid me seven dollars and a-half to-day. Now, Francis, I want you to take this money and buy those trousers to-morrow.”

[192]

“Well, I’ll see myself—farther,” said Mr. Townsend comprehensively. He half rose, and pushed her gently from him. “I’d like to see myself take—take your little money. Spend it on yourself, now you’ve got it, or on the children if you want to—heaven knows you need things badly enough! I won’t touch a cent of it.”

“But Francis, you must! You never can get a position dressed as you are; you look like—— Clothes make such a difference! Oh, I didn’t want to say it but—Francis, you’ve got to take the money.” She strove to put it in his pocket and he thrust forth her hand with a grip that held her slender wrist like a vise.

“It’s no use, Polly. You don’t know how your having to earn it hurts me; I haven’t the right to forbid it but”—he stopped, and forced down something—“I haven’t come to such a pass that I’ll take your money to buy my clothes.” He fixed her sternly with a masterful eye. “There’s no use in your persisting. I’ll tell you once for all that I won’t do it; and I don’t want to hear any more on the subject.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Townsend soothingly, in the tone of one who bides her time. She added afterwards in protest, “You haven’t half eaten your dinner—and I took such pains with it.”

[193]

“I think—you make it so nicely—but I think I’m just a little tired of stew,” said Mr. Townsend apologetically.

Later she found him rummaging in his closet, appearing as he heard her step to say explanatorily:

“I want to see if I can’t find another pair of trousers to wear to-morrow. I guess I’d better leave these I have on for you to fix up a little. The fact is—I didn’t tell you before, for I don’t want you to raise your hopes in any way—but I’ve at last got an appointment for the day after to-morrow to see Mr. Effingham.”

“An appointment with Mr. Effingham! Oh, Francis!”

“Cartwright’s letter was what did it. Cartwright says Effingham is the kind of a fellow who either likes you or doesn’t like you, straight off the bat. I tell you, I think a lot of Cartwright’s writing all the way from Chicago about this, taking so much pains for a man that’s almost a stranger to him.”

“Oh, you never do anything for people yourself!” said his wife sarcastically.

“I never did anything for Cartwright—except put his wife once on the right train,” said Mr. Townsend. “Now, what’s the matter with these trousers?” He held up a pair for inspection. “They look all right.”

[194]

“Oh, nothing’s the matter, nothing whatever,” said his wife scornfully, “except that they’re full of moth holes. Those are the winter trousers—the only good pair you had—that you left at your sister’s—you said you could get them any time—and she had them stuffed into a dark closet this summer while she was away in the country; she just sent them over Monday.”

“Oh, yes, I remember,” said Mr. Townsend hastily. “You’d better get rid of them. Now, here’s a pair—I didn’t know I had any so good.”

“Those are the ones you painted the attic in last spring,” said Mrs. Townsend, “and the pair next are what you keep for fishing. Those belong to your dress-suit, and the ones beyond are too short, and worn all over so that you were afraid to put them on.”

Mr. Townsend surveyed the last named with raised eyebrows and a consenting, cornerwise glance at his wife. “Yes, they are pretty bad—but I guess I’d better wear them to-morrow while you fix up these.”

“Francis, if you’re going to see Mr. Effingham you’ll just have to buy a pair of trousers.”

He turned on her sternly as he said: “Didn’t I tell you not to speak of it?”

“Yes, but I will speak of it!” Mrs. Townsend[195] hurled herself into the fray. “Francis, I can’t help it! When I think of all you’ve suffered, and all you’ve done, and how much depends now on—oh, my dearest!” she tried to put her head on an eluding shoulder as she followed him around the room, flushed with her eloquence—“please take this money. If you knew how happy I’d been all the time to think that I was working for you, and how I had set my heart on it, you wouldn’t be so unkind. I know I told you my shoes were bad, but they do quite well as they are, and the children do not need warm underwear yet. It was very stupid of me to talk of it, and it will make all the difference how you are dressed when you go to see Mr. Effingham. You’ve often said what a difference a person’s appearance made—and it’s so unlike you to look shabby! You ought to do everything to try and get that position; you can’t afford to lose the ghost of a chance. You are so foolish, you won’t listen to reason! Oh, Francis, won’t you stand still and answer me?”

“Yes, I’ll answer you,” said Mr. Townsend deliberately. “You can ‘reason,’ as you call it, until you’re blind. Once for all, I will never take that money.”

“You will.”

“I will not. Now, Polly not another[196] word; do you hear? Not another word!”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Townsend, as before with conventional obedience, and followed the words with a reckless flash of her grey eyes as she left the room, murmuring with quick breath: &ldq............