II
"I won't pretend this is accidental, Miss Stanton."
Ikey looked up startled, began to curl her feet up under her skirt, decided that it was not worth while,—he was only one of the boarders,—and offered buns and candy with indifferent promptness.
"There's a gang of toughs coming down over the hill. Strikers, maybe. I thought they might startle you."
He seated himself unceremoniously on a rock near by.
Ikey settled back with a little comfortable movement against her own rock and raised her eyebrows.
"The proper thing for me to do at this stage is to inquire in a haughty voice how you happened to know I was here."
"I followed you."
There was no hint of apology, and she looked at him more closely. She had sat opposite him at the unesthetic boarding-house dining-table for the past six weeks now. He ate enormously,—but in cultured wise,—never said anything, was something over six feet tall, wore ready-made, dust-colored clothes, and was utterly inconspicuous. "Like a big gray wall." Just now it was the expression of his face, intangibly different—or had she never taken the trouble to notice him before?—that fixed her attention.
He was looking straight at her.
"I've been following you ever since you left your office," he said after a deliberate pause; and Ikey's eyes grew large and frightened as she took in his meaning.
"Then you saw——"
"I did." There was another pause. "It won't happen again." His tone was quite final. "Why do you lay yourself open to that sort of thing? Don't you know that the burnt district is no place for any woman at all these days—not even one block of it? Why don't you ride?"
His voice was quite cross, and Ikey could have laughed aloud. This, to her, who had the burnt district on her nerves to such an extent that she dreamed of the brick-and-twisted-iron chaos by night—the miles of desolation, punctuated by crumbling chimneys and tottering walls—dreamed of it by night and turned sick at the sight of it by day. Did this stupid hulk of a person think she liked the burnt district—and to walk there?
After all, his attitude was less funny than impertinent. She would be angry. It was better. She would respond icily and put him in his place.
At least, such was her intention. But she discovered to her amazement that she was trembling—her encounter of the noon was responsible for that—and her teeth seemed inclined to hit against each other rapidly with a little clicking noise. So it seemed on the whole more expedient to blurt out her remarks without any attempt at frills or amplification.
"Why don't you ride?"
Ikey gathered herself together.
"My dear Mr. Hammond, there is a street car strike on here in San Francisco. No union wagons run out this way—and I lose my position if I use the cars."
He was welcome to that. She looked off into the distance while he assimilated it.
"I had not thought of that," he said at last slowly. "In that case there is but one thing to do. You must stop that work at once."
"And stand in the bread line? Now? Along with—those others?" A little smile twisted her lips. "I should look handsome doing that."
"But surely——"
His tone was beginning to be puzzled. So was his expression. Ikey ascertained this by allowing a glance to brush past him.
