Mrs. Pantin had not lived twelve years with Abram in vain. A look of suspicion crossed her face, and there was a little less solicitude in her voice as she inquired:
"Is it anything in particular? Bad news from home?"
"It's money!" Mrs. Toomey blurted out. "We're dreadfully hard up. 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. It was, however, only a moment before she recovered herself and was able to say with sweet earnestness:
"I haven't anything to do with that, my dear. You'll have to see Mr. Pantin."
Mrs. Toomey clasped her fingers tightly together and stammered:
"If—if you would speak to him first—I—I thought perhaps—"
Mrs. Pantin's set society smile was on her small mouth, but the finality of the laws of the Medes and the Persians was in her tone as she replied:
"I never think of interfering with my husband's business or making suggestions. As fond as I am of you, Della, you'll have to ask him yourself."
Mrs. Toomey had the feeling that they never would be quite on the same footing again. 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.
70
