The Debtor. Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
India silk which she wore.
“Amy's amethysts match colors like chamellons,” said Ina. “Look how pink they are.”
“Lovely,” said Charlotte, gazing admiringly. “The next time I go to a dance, you promised I should wear the necklace, Amy, dear.”
“You will not go to a dance for a long time in Banbridge, sweet, I fear,” said Mrs. Carroll, with loving commiseration.
“Somebody will call soon, and we shall be asked to something,” said Charlotte, with conviction.
“Nobody has called yet,” Ina said.
“We have only been here three weeks,” said Miss Anna Carroll, who was a beautiful woman, and, but for a certain stateliness of carriage, might have seemed but little older than her elder niece.
“Somebody may be calling this afternoon,” said Ina, “and the maid has gone out, and we should not know they called.”
“Oh, let them leave their cards,” said Mrs. Carroll, easily. “That is the only way to receive calls, and make them. If one could only know when people would be out, but not have them know you knew, always—that would be lovely—and if one only knew when they were coming, so one could always be out—that would be lovelier still.” Mrs. Carroll had a disjointed way of speaking when she essayed a long speech, that had almost an infantile effect.
“Amy, how very ungracious of you, dear,” said Miss Anna Carroll. “You know you always love people when you really do meet them.”
“Oh yes,” replied Amy, “I know I love them.”
Meantime, Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Van Dorn were ringing the door-bell of the Carroll house. They rang the bell and waited, and nobody came.
“Did you ring the bell?” asked Mrs. Van Dorn, anxiously.
“I thought I did. I pressed the button very hard.”
“I didn't hear it. I think you had better ring again.”
Mrs. Lee obediently pressed the bell again, and then both ladies heard distinctly the far-away tinkle in the depths of the house.
“I heard that,” said Mrs. Lee.
“Yes, so did I. It rang that time.”
Then the ladies waited again.
“Suppose you ring again,” said Mrs. Van Dorn, and Mrs. Lee rang again. Then they waited again, straining their ears for the slightest sound in the house.
“I am afraid they are out,” said Mrs. Van Dorn.
“So am I. It is such a lovely afternoon.”
Mrs. Van Dorn, after they had waited a short time, put out her hand with a decisive motion, and rang the bell yet again.
“I'm going to make sure they are not at home,” said she, “for I don't know when I shall get out calling again, and I always feel as if it was my duty to call on new-comers in the village pretty soon after they move in.”
Then they waited again, but no one came. Once Mrs. Lee started and said she was sure she heard some one coming, but it was only the rumble of a train at a station two miles away.
“Shall we leave our cards?” said Mrs. Lee. “I don't suppose there is much use in waiting any longer, or ringing again.”
Mrs. Van Dorn, who had been staring intently at the door, looked quickly at her companion with a curious expression. Her face had flushed.
“What is it?” asked Mrs. Lee. “You don't suppose any one is in there and not coming to the door?” Mrs. Lee had a somewhat suspicious nature.
“No; I don't think there is a soul in that house, but—”
“But what?”
“Nothing, only—”
“Only what?”
“Why, don't you see what they have done?”
“I am afraid I don't quite know what you mean,” Mrs. Lee returned, in a puzzled way. It was quite evident that Mrs. Van Dorn wished her to grasp something which her own mind had mastered, that she wished it without further explanation, and Mrs. Lee felt bewilderedly apologetic that she could not comply.
“Don't you see that they have gone off and left the front door unlocked?” said Mrs. Van Dorn, with inflections of embarrassment, eagerness, and impatience. If she and Mrs. Lee had been, as of yore, school-children together, she would certainly have said, “You ninny!” to finish.
“Why!” returned Mrs. Lee, with a sort of gasp. She saw then that the front door was not only unlocked, but slightly ajar. “Do you suppose they really are not at home?” she whispered.
“Of course they are not at home.”
“Would they go away and leave the front door unlocked?”
“They have.”
“They might be in the back part of the house, and not have heard the bell,” Mrs. Lee said, with a curious tone, as if she replied to some unspoken suggestion.
“I know this house as well as I do my own. You know how much I used to be here when the Ranger girls were alive. There is not a room in this house where anybody with ears can't hear the bell.”
Still, Mrs. Van Dorn spoke in that curiously ashamed and indignant voice. Mrs. Lee contradicted her no further.
“Well, I suppose you must be right,” said she. “There can't be anybody at home; but it is strange they went off and did not even shut the front door.”
“I don't know what the Ranger girls would have said, if they knew it. They would have had a fit at the bare idea of going away for ever so short a time, and leaving the house and furniture alone and the door unlocked.”
“Their furniture is here now, I suppose?”
“Yes, I suppose so—some of it, anyway, but I don't know how much furniture these people bought, of course.”
“Mr. Lee said he heard they had such magnificent things.”
“I heard so, but you hear a good deal that isn't so in Banbridge!”
“That is true. I suppose you knew the house and the Ranger girls' furniture so well that you could tell at a glance what was new and what wasn't?”
“Yes, I could.”
As with one impulse both women turned and peered through a green maze of trees and bushes at Samson Rawdy, several yards distant.
“Can you see him?” whispered Mrs. Lee.
“Yes. I think he's asleep. He is sitting with his head all bent over.”
“He is—not—looking?”
“No.”
Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Van Dorn regarded each other. Both looked at once ashamed and defiant before the other, then into each pair of eyes leaped a light of guilty understanding and perfect sympathy. There are some natures for whom curiosity is one of the master passions, and the desire for knowledge of the affairs of others can become a lust, and Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Van Dorn were of the number. Mrs. Van Dorn gave her head in her best calling-bonnet a toss, and the violets, which were none too securely fastened, nodded loosely; then she thrust her chin forward, she sniffed like a hunting-hound on the scent, pushed open the front-door, and entered, with Mrs. Lee following. As Mrs. Van Dorn entered, the violets on her bonnet became quite detached and fell softly to the floor of the porch, but neither of the ladies noticed.
Mrs. Lee, in particular, had led a monotonous life, and she had a small but intense spirit which could have weathered extremes. Now her faculties seemed to give a leap; she was afraid, but there was distinct rapture in her fear. She had not been so actively happy since