He heard voices as he entered the house, and to his amazement found Ellen in the parlor. She was sitting very stiff on the edge of her chair, her hat slightly crooked and a suit-case and brown paper bundle at her feet.
Mrs. Boyd was busily entertaining her.
"I make it a point to hold my head high," she was saying. "I guess there was a lot of talk when I took a boarder, but--Is that you, Willy?"
"Why, Miss Ellen!" he said. "And looking as though headed for a journey!"
Ellen's face did not relax. She had been sitting there for an hour, letting Mrs. Boyd's prattle pour over her like a rain, and thinking meanwhile her own bitter thoughts.
"I am, Willy. Only I didn't wait for my money and the bank's closed, and I came to borrow ten dollars, if you have it."
That told him she was in trouble, but Mrs. Boyd, amiably hospitable and reveling in a fresh audience, showed no sign of departing.
"She says she's been living at the Cardews," she put in, rocking valiantly. "I guess most any place would seem tame after that. I do hear, Miss Hart, that Mrs. Howard Cardew only wears her clothes once and then gives them away."
She hitched the chair away from the fireplace, where it showed every indication of going up the chimney.
"I call that downright wasteful," she offered.
Willy glanced at his watch, which had been his father's, and bore the inscription: "James Duncan Cameron, 1876" inside the case.
"Eleven o'clock," he said sternly. "And me promising the doctor I'd have you in bed at ten sharp every night! Now off with you."
"But, Willy--"
"--or I shall have to carry you," he threatened. It was an old joke between them, and she rose, smiling, her thin face illuminated with the sense of being looked after.
"He's that domineering," she said to Ellen, "that I can't call my soul my own."
"Good-night," Ellen said briefly.
Willy stood at the foot of the stairs and watched her going up. He knew she liked him to do that, that she would expect to find him there when she reached the top and looked down, panting slightly.
"Good-night," he called. "Both windows open. I shall go outside to see."
Then he went back to Ellen, still standing primly over her Lares and Penates.
"Now tell me about it," he said.