There was nothing impulsive about the affair. The two had
trotted about their adopted city for perhaps two years before Bert
brought Nancy the enormous diamond that his mother had given him
years ago for just this wonderful time. Circumstances had helped
them to know each other well. Nancy knew the sort of play that
made Bert stutter with enthusiasm as they walked home, and Bert
knew that Nancy made adorable little faces when she tried on hats,
and that her salary was fifteen dollars a week. At this time, and
for some years later, Bert was only one of several renting agents
employed by the firm of Pearsall and Pearsall, City Real Estate.
He moved his office from one new office-building downtown to
another, sometimes warmed by clanking new radiators, sometimes
carrying a gasoline stove with him into the region of new plaster
and paint. His name was not important enough to be included in the
list of tenants in the vestibule, he was merely "Renting Office,
Tenth Floor." And Nancy knew that when he had been a few months
longer with Pearsall and Pearsall, they would pay him exactly
thirteen hundred dollars a year.
That was the objection, money. Mother and Uncle Tom thought that
that was not enough; Nancy and Bert worked it all out on paper,
and thought it more than sufficient.
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