"I'll speak to the superintendent about you," he said. "Perhaps you'd like
me to show you around a little."
"When? To-day?"
He had meant in a month, or a year. It was quite a minute before he
replied:-"Yes, to-day, if you say. I'm operating at four. How about three
o'clock?"
She held out both hands, and he took them, smiling.
"You are the kindest person I ever met."
"And--perhaps you'd better not say you are applying until we find out if
there is a vacancy."
"May I tell one person?"
"Mother?"
"No. We--we have a roomer now. He is very much interested. I should like
to tell him."
He dropped her hands and looked at her in mock severity.
"Much interested! Is he in love with you?"
"Mercy, no!"
"I don't believe it. I'm jealous. You know, I've always been more than
half in love with you myself!"
Play for him--the same victorious instinct that had made him touch Miss
Harrison's fingers as she gave him the instrument. And Sidney knew how it
was meant; she smiled into his eyes and drew down her veil briskly.
"Then we'll say at three," she said calmly, and took an orderly and
unflurried departure.
But the little seed of tenderness had taken root. Sidney, passing in the
last week or two from girlhood to womanhood,--outgrowing Joe, had she only
known it, as she had outgrown the Street,--had come that day into her first
contact with a man of the world. True, there was K. Le Moyne. But K. was
now of the Street, of that small world of one dimension that she was
leaving behind her.
She sent him a note at noon, with word to Tillie at Mrs. McKee's to put it
under his plate:-DEAR MR. LE MOYNE,--I am so excited I can hardly write. Dr. Wilson, the
surgeon, is going to take me through the hospital this afternoon. Wish me
luck. SIDNEY PAGE.
K. read it, and, perhaps because the day was hot and his butter soft and
the other "mealers" irritable with the heat, he ate little or no luncheon.
Before he went out into the sun, he read the note again. To his jealous
eyes came a vision of that excursion to the hospital. Sidney, all vibrant
eagerness, luminous of eye, quick of bosom; and Wilson, sardonically
smiling, amused and interested in spite of himself. He drew a long breath,
and thrust the note in his pocket.