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I came to see if we could get a loan." The egg-beater went on, but the milk of human kindness which, presumably, flowed in Mrs. Pantin's breast stopped congealed froze up tight. Her blue eyes, whose vividness was accentuated as usual by the robin's egg blue dress she wore, had the warm genial glow radiating from a polar berg.
"I've been reading about you, you know, and I want to tell you how proud we all are of you and of what you have accomplished. This is Woman's Day, isn't it?" Since she seemed not to expect an answer, Kate made none and Mrs. Pantin continued: "I've been wanting to see you that I might ask you to come to me say next Thursday?" Mrs. Pantin's manner was tinged with patronage.
She knew it from the way in which Mrs. Pantin's eyes travelled from the unbecoming brown veil on her head to her warm but antiquated coat, stopping at her shabby shoes which, instinctively, she drew beneath the hem of her skirt. To be shabby from carelessness was one thing to be so from necessity was another, clearly was in Mrs. Pantin's mind.
Toomey was not too agitated to note how immaculate and dainty the dining room table looked with its fine linen and cut glass. There were six dices of apple with a nut on top on the handsome salad plates, and the crystal dessert dishes each held three prunes swimming in their rich juice. The living-room, too, reflected Mrs. Pantin's taste.
At one we are very old-fashioned. I want you to meet some of our best ladies Mrs. Sudds Mrs. Neifkins Mrs. Toomey and others." As she enumerated the guests on her fingers the tip of Mrs. Pantin's pink tongue darted in and out with the rapierlike movement of an ant-eater.
"Even in a small community one must keep up the social bars and preserve the traditions of one's up-bringing, mustn't one?" "One is apt to become lax, too democratic it's the tendency of this western country," Mrs. Toomey assented. She felt very exclusive and elegant at the moment. Mrs. Pantin's eyes had been upon her work, now she raised them and looked at Mrs. Toomey squarely.
"Tomatoes," frigidly. "It's mock mincemeat." A triumph in economy an achievement! But Mr. Pantin's flattery and conciliating smile were alike futile. Like many another overzealous partisan, he had made for Kate one more enemy. It seemed aeons ago to Mrs.
"It's about the cook stove; Teeters wants to foreclose the mortgage." She regarded him fixedly, turned, and started for the kitchen. She knew that he was lying. One of the things which Mrs. Abram Pantin's worst enemy would have had to admit in her favor was that, strictly speaking, she was not a gossip, though this virtue was due as much to policy as to principle.
Pantin's smile deceived her and she plunged on with confidence: "I we would like to arrange for a loan, Mr. Pantin." "To what amount, Mrs. Toomey?" Mrs. Toomey considered. "As much as you could conveniently spare." The smile which Mr. Pantin endeavored to conceal was genuine. "For what length of time?" Mrs. Toomey had not thought of that.
It was Mr. Pantin's proud boast that he never yet had "held the sack," and now he thought complacently as he turned from the window, grabbed the shovel and whisk and leaped for an ash that had dropped, that this was an instance where he had again shown excellent judgment in not allowing his warm heart and impulses to control his head.
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