"How would one go about it? I mean if we did have the money. In what way is it done ?"
"You simply send the money to New Orleans, to the insurance company. They credit the payments against the policy."
"And then the policy comes into force again?"
"The policy comes into force again," he said somewhat testily, annoyed by her persistence in clinging to the subject.
He had divined, of course, what her sudden interest was. She was entertaining a vague hope that they could borrow against it in some way, obtain money by that means.
"Could I see it?" she coaxed.
"Right now? It's upstairs somewhere, among my old papers. But it's of no value, I warn you; the payments have not been maintained."
She did not press him further. She sat there meditatively fingering the diamond on her finger, shifting it a little bit this way, a little bit that, so that it gave off sparks of brilliance in the lamplight.
She did not ask him for it nor about it again, but remembering that she had, he set about looking for it on his own account. This was not immediately, but some two or three days later.
He couldn't find it. He looked where he'd thought he had it, first, and it wasn't there. Then he looked elsewhere, nor could he find it in any of the other places he looked, either.
It must have been lost, during their many hurried moves from place to place, in the course of hasty packing and unpacking. Or else it would perhaps yet turn up, in some unlikely place he had not yet thought of looking for it.
He desisted finally, with no great concern; with, if anything, a mental shrug. Since it was worthless and could not have been borrowed against (which he thought had been the motive behind her asking about it), there was no great loss, in any case.
He did not even mention to her that he could not locate it. There was no reason to, for she too seemed to have forgotten her earlier interest in it, as she sat there across the table from him, idly stroking and contemplating her ringless hands.
Within the week, the cook and cleaning woman (one and the same) whom they'd had until then, was suddenly gone, and they were alone now in the house.
He asked her about this, after two successive days without her, only noting her departure, man-like, after it had already taken place. "What's become of Amelia ?"
"I shipped her Tuesday," she said shortly.
"But I thought we owed her three or four weeks back wages. How were you able to pay her ?"
"I didn't."
"And she agreed to go nonetheless?"
"She had no choice, I ordered her to. She will get her money when we have it ourselves, she knows that."
"Aren't you getting anyone else?"
"No," she said, "I can manage," and added something under her breath that he didn't hear quite clearly.
"What ?" he asked in involuntary surprise. He thought she had said, "for the little time there is."
"I said, for a little time, that is," she repeated adroitly.
And manage she did, and far more successfully than in their Mobile days, when she had first tried keeping her own house, and he had had to take her back to the hotel for meals.
For one thing, she showed far more purpose than she had in those far-off, light-hearted days; there was less of frivolity in her efforts and a great deal more of determination. There was less laughter in the preparations, maybe, but there was less dismay in the results. She was not a child bride, now, playing at keeping house; she was a woman, bent on acquiring new skills, and not sparing herself in the endeavor.
For two full days she cooked, she washed the dishes, she swung a broom all up and down the stairs. Then on the second night of this apprenticeship--
He heard her scream out suddenly in the kitchen, and there was the crash of a dropped dish as it slipped her hands. She had gone in there to wash up after their meal, and he had remained behind browsing through the paper. Even the most enamored man did not offer to dry the dishes for a woman; it would have been as conventional as assisting at a childbirth.
He flung down his paper and darted in there. She was standing before the steaming washtub. "What is it, did you scald yourself?"
She was pointing, horrified.
"A rat," she choked. "It ran straight between my feet as I stood here. Into there." And with a sickened grimace, "Oh, the size of it! The horrid look!"
He took up a poker and tried to plunge it into the crevice at meeting-place of wall and floor that she had indicated. It balked. There was no depth to take it. It seemed a shallow rent in the plaster, no more.
"It could not have gone in there--"
Her fright turned to anger. "Do you call me a liar? Must it bite me and draw blood, for you to believe me?"
He dropped down now on all fours and began working the poker vigorously to and fro, in truth knocking out a hole if there had been none before.
She watched a moment. "What are you trying to do?" she said coldly.
"Why, kill it," he panted.
"That is not the way to be rid of them!" Her foot gave a clout of impatience against the floor. "You kill one, and there are a dozen left."
She flung down her apron, strode from the room and out to the front of the house. Sensing some purpose he could not divine, but disquieted by it, he put down the poker after a moment, struggled to his feet, and went after her. He found her in the hall, bonnetted and shawled, to his astonishment, in readiness to go out.
"Where are you going ?"
"Since you don't know enough to, I am going to the pharmacist myself, to have him give me something that will exterminate them," she retorted ungraciously.
"Now? At this hour? Why, it's past nine; he'll be closed long ago."
"There is another, on the other side of town, that stays open until ten; you know that as well as I do." And she added with ill-humored decision, as though he were to blame for their presence in some way, "I will not go back into that kitchen and run the risk of being attacked. They will be running over our very bed, yet, while we sleep!"
"Very well, I'll go myself," he offered hastily. "No need for you to go, at this time of night."
She relented somewhat. She took off her shawl, though still frowning a trifle that he had not seen his duty sooner. She took him to the door.
"Don't go back in there," he cautioned, "until I come back."
"Nothing could prevail on me to," she agreed fearfully.
She closed the door after him.
She reopened it to call him back for an instant.
"Don't tell him who we are, what house it's for," she suggested in a lowered voice. "I would not like our neighbors to know we have rats in our house. It's a reflection on me, on my cleanliness as a housekeeper--"
He laughed at this typically feminine anxiety, but promised and went on.
When he came back he found that she had returned to her task in the kitchen nonetheless, in spite of his admonition and her own fear; a bit of conscientious courage which he could not help but secretly admire. She had, however, taken the precaution of bringing in the table lamp with her and placing it on the floor close by her feet, as a sort of blazing protection.
"Did you see any more since I was gone ?"
"I thought I saw it come back to that hole, but I threw something at it, and it did not come out again."
He showed her what the druggist had given him. "This is to be spread around outside their holes and hiding places."
"Did he ask any questions ?" she asked somewhat irrelevantly.
"No, only whether or not we had any children about the house."
"He did not ask which house it was ?"
"No. He's rather elderly and doddering, you know; he seemed anxious to be rid of me and close for the night."
She half extended her hand.
"No, don't touch it. I'll do it for you."