"It's not the wind." Mrs. Toomey's eyes were swimming now. "I'm worried half to death."
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, Delia, 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.
To be shabby from carelessness was one thing--to be so from necessity was another, clearly was in Mrs. Pantin's mind. She had known, of course, of the collapse of their cattle-raising enterprise, but she had not dreamed they were in such a bad way as this. She hoped she was not the sort of person who would let it make any difference in her warm friendship for Delia Toomey; nevertheless, Mrs. Toomey detected the subtle note of patronage in her voice when she said: "Abram is alone in the living room--you might speak to him."
"I think I will." Mrs. Toomey endeavored to repair the mistake she felt she had made by speaking in a tone which implied that a loan was of no great moment after all, but she walked out with the feeling that she used to have in the presence of the more opulent members of her father's congregation when the flour barrel was low.