The Cliff-Dwellers | Page 8

returned the look in kind; and they both looked in
the same fashion back and forth between "Walworth and his caller. Ann
"Wilde snapped the catch of her hand-bag once or twice, and glanced
between times at some loose papers inside it. Ferguson, in the other
room, thought he perceived the approach of a domestic crisis a disputed
dress-maker's bill, perhaps. Yet there might be other reasons. He knew
that the cook was sometimes imperti nent, and that the market-man
now and then forgot to send the white-fish. He himself was a mere
boarding bachelor, yet he had come to learn something of the relief
which follows the shifting of a housekeeper's cares to the shoul ders of
the housekeeper's husband. Ferguson had relieved the tedium of many a
half-hour by short-handing bits of dialogue that accompanied connubial
spats between his employer and his employer's wife.
These signs and tokens were not lost on Ogden; he rose again to go.
Nor were they lost on Floyd himself, whose apprehension of a bad

quarter of an hour was heightened by the ab sence, as yet, of any exact
data. He had no wish to hold the field alone, and he begged Ogden not
to hurry his departure.
"Where are the girls?" he asked his wife. "I thought you said they came
along with you."
"They did. They are in the building. They will be up in a few minutes.
That child! some body ought to look after her.
"Then why not wait a little while?" Floyd suggested to Ogden. "My
wife's affair won't take long. Ferguson, won't you just clear off that
chair out there and find the paper? And now, what is it!" he asked the
two women when they were left together.

II
Ann has heard from those Minneapo lis people again. And she isn't any
nearer making up her mind than before." "Here's what they say," added
his sister-inlaw. She took a letter out of her bag and hand ed it to him.
Oh!" said Wai worth. He felt half relieved, half vexed.
His wife stood by the window, rubbing her forefinger along the edges
of its silver lettering.
"I don't see whatever put Minneapolis into Anil's head. There seeins to
be a plenty of buildings right here."
She looked at the rough brick back of a tow ering structure a few
hundred feet away, and at the huddle of lower roofs between. From a
sky light on one of these a sunbeam came reflected, and compelled her
to move.
"And plenty of dirt, too, if she is after real estate; plenty to be sold, and
plenty of people to sell it. I never saw a town where it was more
plentiful."

She glanced downwards at the wagons and cars that were splashing
through the streets after a rainy September night. "Why shouldn't there
be more people to shovel it, too? You see their signs stuck up
everywhere the dealers, I mean."
"Ann. can get to Minneapolis in thirteen hours," suggested Walworth,
passing the end of his thumb along one of his eyebrows. "What's that,
after the trip West? And then she can see for herself- You take the cars
here late in. the afternoon, and you get there in time for breakfast."
"I believe I'd just let it drop," said Miss Wilde, "if I happened to know
positively of any good thing here. They write a nice enough letter, but I
can't tell what state the building is in un less I see it. And I'm merely
taking their word that the ground is worth a hundred and fifty. There's
forty feet. I wonder if all improvements in means that the street is
paved."
"Drop it, anyway," said her sister, as if she were disembarrassing
herself of some loathsome parcel. "Look around in Chicago itself. You
can see what you are buying, then. Even if you do invest here, you are
not compelled to live here." She became almost rigid in her disdain.
"Ah um!" murmured Walworth, in a non committal way.
The door opened suddenly, and two young girls entered in a brisk
fashion. The first one had a slight figure, a little above the average
height. To-day people called her slender; six or eight years later they
would be likely to call her lean. She had long, thin arras, and delicate,
transparent hands. She had large eyes of a deep blue, and the veins
were plainly outlined on her pale temples. She had a bright face and a
lively manner, and seemed to be one who drew largely on her nervous
force without making deposits to keep up her account. Her costume
was such as to give one the idea that dress was an important matter
with her.
"Well, Frankie!" she called to Mrs. Floyd, "you