"
Mrs. Armstrong smiled. "I can't see anything so very astonishing
about it," she said.
"Can't you?"
"Certainly not. Why shouldn't you do it--often? We are landlord
and tenant, you and I, but that is no reason, so far as I can see,
why we shouldn't be good neighbors."
He shook his head.
"I don't know's you quite understand, ma'am," he said. "It's your
thinkin' of doin' it, your askin' me and--and WANTIN' to ask me
that seems so kind of odd. Do you know," he added, in a burst of
confidence, "I don't suppose that, leavin' Sam Hunniwell out,
another soul has asked me to eat at their house for ten year.
Course I'm far from blamin' 'em for that, you understand, but--"
"Wait. Mr. Winslow, you had tenants in this house before?"
"Yes'm. Davidson, their names was."
"And did THEY never invite you here?"
Jed looked at her, then away, out of the window. It was a moment
or two before he answered. Then--
"Mrs. Armstrong," he said, "you knew, I cal'late, that I was--er--
kind of prejudiced against rentin' anybody this house after the
Davidsons left?"
The lady, trying not to smile, nodded.
"Yes," she replied, "I--well, I guessed as much."
"Yes'm, I was. They would have took it again, I'm pretty sartin,
if I'd let 'em, but--but somehow I couldn't do it. No, I couldn't,
and I never meant anybody else should be here.
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