“Lord knows it is, ma’am,” said Nelson, despondently; “it is hard on us all!  Sometimes I don’t see the end of it all.  A vast social revolution ——­”

“Social fiddlesticks!  I beg your pardon, Mr. Forrest, but it puts me out of patience to have people expecting to be allowed to make every mortal kind of fools of themselves and then have ‘a social revolution’ jump in to slue off the consequences.  Let us understand each other.  Who do you suppose I am?”

“Miss—­Miss Almer, ain’t it?”

“It’s Alma Brown, Mr. Forrest.  I saw you coming on the boat and I made Mr. Martin fetch me over to you.  I told him not to say my name, because I wanted a good plain talk with you.  Well, I’ve had it.  Things are just about where I thought they were, and I told Mr. Lossing so.  But I couldn’t be sure.  You must have thought me a funny kind of woman to be telling you all those things about myself.”

Nelson, who had changed color half a dozen times in the darkness, sighed before he said:  “No, ma’am; I only thought how good you were to tell me.  I hoped maybe you were impressed to trust me as I was to trust you.”

Being so dark Nelson could not see the queer expression on her face as she slowly shook her head.  She was thinking:  “If I ever saw a babe in arms trying to do business!  How did he ever pay for a farm?” She said:  “Well, I did it on purpose; I wanted you to know I wasn’t a cruel aristocrat, but a woman that had worked as hard as yourself.  Now, why shouldn’t you help me and yourself instead of helping Richards?  You have confidence in me, you say.  Well, show it.  I’ll give you your mortgage for your mortgage on Richards’s farm.  Come, can’t you trust Richards to me?  You think it over.”

The hiss of a rocket hurled her words into space.  The fireworks had begun.  Miss Brown looked at them and watched Nelson at the same time.  As a good business woman who was also a good citizen, having subscribed five dollars to the carnival, she did not propose to lose the worth of her money; neither did she intend to lose a chance to do business.  Perhaps there was an obscurer and more complex motive lurking in some stray corner of that queer garret, a woman’s mind.  Such motives—­aimless softenings of the heart, unprofitable diversions of the fancy—­will seep unconsciously through the toughest business principles of woman.

She was puzzled by the look of exaltation on Nelson’s features, illumined as they were by the uncanny light.  If the fool man had not forgotten all his troubles just to see a few fireworks!  No, he was not that kind of a fool; maybe—­and she almost laughed aloud in her pleasure over her own insight—­maybe it all made him think of the war, where he had been so brave.  “He was a regular hero in the war,” Miss Brown concluded, “and he certainly is a perfect gentleman; what a pity he hasn’t got any sense!”