Carmella Commands
“Well, but—dammit, kid!—Mr. Hastings offered you fifty-one hundred, he tells me—that’s more than your father asked⸺”
Carmella hesitated, gazing at the realtor in sorry misery. Her lips quivered as she answered:
“M-Mr. B-Barrington,” she half sobbed. “I’ve got something to tell you. I d-d-didn’t interpret right to dad. I heard Mr. Hastings say—or Mr. Richmond—what he said to the other man. D-Dad would have sold for four thousand. I t-translated wrong. I kept s-saying that Mr. Hastings wouldn’t give but only three thousand five hundred. And I kept telling Mr. Hastings that dad wouldn’t sell for less than seven thousand. I—I—l-lied, Mr. Barrington.”
Suddenly Carmella burst into tears, a situation with which Mr. Barrington had had small experience. His wife’s Norman blood did not burst into tears, whatever the provocation. Carmella wept quietly for a moment, and then burst into language again.
“I ch-cheated, Mr. B-Barrington. I ch-cheated. I didn’t want dad to work so hard and then somebody else make all the money. Dad would kill me if he knew it. Don’t ever let him know it, please, Mr. Barrington.”
Mr. Barrington, all at once, felt like a knight errant. In business matters he was known by his associates and competitors to be as sympathetic as a railroad crossing. But in some odd way this seemed different from ordinary business. Carmella was, for one thing, his
[95]
