Daphne Deane Read Online Free PDF Page A

course--why should he care what became of it?
    He sat there staring at the agent, a cool mask upon his face, while he struggled with emotions he did not quite understand. Why was it that something stood in his way when he thought of assenting to a program like this?
    At last he arose and faced the agent: "I will give you my answer day after tomorrow," he said. "I shall have to think it over."
    "Well, but I understood you were anxious to sell!" said the agent, anxiously following him toward the door and seeing his fat commission vanishing into dim uncertainty.
    "Yes, I was," said Keith Morrell thoughtfully. "But something has--come up--" He hesitated for the right word and ended lamely, "I shall have to think it over."
    "You mean the price is not enough?" asked the agent eagerly. "I'm quite sure the man would pay more if he had to."
    "No, it is not a matter of money," said the young man, more as if he were arguing with himself.
    "You mean you are considering coming back to live there?"
    The agent's mouth drooped with anticipated disappointment.
    "No, I hadn't thought of that, exactly."
    "Well, you mean you might withdraw the house from the market?"
    "I don't know really what I mean," said Keith. "I shall have to think it over. Perhaps I shall have to go over the house again."
    And suddenly it came to him that that was just what he must do. He would have to go over the house and find it bleak and empty, in order to wipe out that vision of the little boy praying at his mother's knee beside the fire, before he could ever hand over that house to be metamorphosed and obliterated from life and history.
    The agent followed him almost out to the car, talking eagerly, suggesting the buyer might take another place instead if he kept him waiting, persuading him that it was a great offer, cash, in these hard times. But Keith only looked down gravely at the path as he walked and reiterated pleasantly, "I will give you my answer day after tomorrow. Possibly I will telephone you from New York."
    He had not really been listening to what the agent said. He had been wondering why he was suddenly so unsettled about selling the house.
    The agent watched the car drive away with a disappointed sag to his shoulders. He had been planning what he would do with that nice fat commission that had seemed so surely coming his way. And Evelyn Avery gushed noisily in her triumph as she drove her quarry home, openly exulting in her success. But Keith Morrell was silent, almost absent-minded, suffering her conversation but giving little heed to the news she was pouring forth. He was still wondering why he was so undecided. What would he do with the house, supposing he should keep it? He had no intention of coming back alone to live in it, even supposing he could arrange his business connections to make that possible. And certainly Anne Casper, provided the breach in their friendship should be healed, would never be willing to live there. She would call it an old-fashioned barracks, perhaps, or maybe even a dump. It seemed ridiculous to allow himself even for an instant to think of such a thing as keeping the house. It would only fall into ruin if it were left standing idle, an expense for caretakers and taxes. Why couldn't he make up his mind to sell it and have it over with at once?
    Yet somehow it seemed as if the spirit of his mother were softly protesting. The idea of making the lovely old rooms into apartments was abhorrent to him, and the influx of people that the building of cheap houses would surely bring, a disrespect to the lovely old estate where his childhood had been spent.
    On the other hand, equally unpleasant was the thought of a tenant, that is, some tenants, going about familiarly in his mother's home! It was unthinkable! Almost he would rather see it torn down than that! A fool he was, of course, and probably only very tired from the heat of the day. Perhaps tomorrow would bring clearer thoughts and a firmer determination. It had been a