Part 49 (2/2)

”Heard from me! Do you mean had I sent in an application for the job?”

”Oh, no, no! Not that. But you and he had never been--er--close friends in the old days, when you were here before?”

He could not guess what she was driving at. ”Look here, Elizabeth,” he said, ”I've told you that I scarcely knew Judge Knowles before he sent for me and offered me this place. No man alive was ever more surprised than I was then. Why, I gathered that the judge had talked about me to you before he sent for me. Not as manager here, of course, but as--well, as a man. He told you that I was goin' to call, you said so, and I _know_ you and he had talked and laughed together about my fight with the hens in Judah's garden.”

The trouble, whatever its cause, seemed to vanish. She smiled. ”Yes, yes,” she said. ”Of course we had. He did like you, Judge Knowles did, and that was all--of course it was.”

”All what?”

”Oh, nothing, nothing. How is Judah? I haven't seen him for two days.”

She would not mention Judge Knowles again, but for the remainder of their session with the accounts she was more like her old self than she had been for at least a week, or so it seemed to him.

This was but one of those queer and disconcerting flare-ups of hers. One day, a week or so after she had questioned him concerning his appointment, he happened to be in the Harbor kitchen, and alone--of itself a surprising thing. Elvira Snowden and her group were holding some sort of committee meeting in the sitting room. Elvira was continually forming committees or circles for this purpose or that, purposes which fizzled out at about the third meeting of each group.

Esther Tidditt was supposed to be in charge of the kitchen on this particular morning, but she had gone into the committee meeting in order to torment Elvira and Mrs. Brackett, a favorite amus.e.m.e.nt with her.

So Sears, wandering into the kitchen, happened to notice that the door of the store closet had been left open, and he was standing in front of it idly looking in. He was brought out of his day dream, which had nothing to do with the closet or its contents, by Elizabeth's voice. She had entered from the dining room and he had not heard her.

”Well,” she asked, ”I trust you find everything present or accounted for?”

Her tone was so crisply sarcastic that he turned in astonishment.

”Why--what?” he faltered.

”I said I trusted that you found everything in that closet as it should be. Have you measured the flour? My mother is matron here, Cap'n Kendrick, and she will be glad to have you take any precautions of that kind, I am sure. So shall I. But don't you think it might as well be done while she or I are here?”

He was bewildered.

”I don't know what you mean, Elizabeth,” he said.

”Don't you?”

”No, I don't. I came in just now by the back door, and there was no one in the kitchen, so--so I waited for a minute.”

”Why did you come by the back door? You didn't use to. Mother and I are usually in the office, or, at least, we are always glad to come there when you call.”

He was still bewildered, but irritated, too.

”Why did I come by the back door?” he repeated. ”Why, I've come that way a dozen times in the last fortnight. Don't you want me to come that way?”

Now she looked a trifle confused, but the flush was still on her cheeks and the sparkle in her eye.

”I'm sure I don't care how often you come that way,” she said.

”But--well, mother is matron here, Cap'n Kendrick. She may not be--perhaps she isn't--the most businesslike and orderly person in the world, but she is my mother. If you have any complaints to make, if you want to find out how things are kept, or managed, or----”

<script>