"Surely it must be possible for me to be of use to you!"
CHAPTER IV
As I recall the minute now my first thought was of my appearance. I had noticed for some time past that it was running down, and had regarded the change almost with satisfaction. The more out at elbow I became the less would be the difference between me and any other young fellow looking for employment. It hadn't escaped me that I grew shabby less with the honorable rough-and-tumble of a working-man than with the threadbare, poignant poverty of broken-down gentility; but I hoped that no one but myself would perceive that. I had thus grown careless of appearances, and during the past forty-eight hours more careless than I had been hitherto. Feeling myself a lamentable object, I had more or less dressed to suit the part.
I knew instantly that it was this that had inspired the words I had just listened to. I knew, too, that I must bluff. Wretched as I looked, I must carry the situation off, with however pitiful a bit of comedy.
Turning, I lifted my hat, with what I could command of the old dignity of bearing.
"How early you are!" I smiled bravely. "I didn't know young ladies were ever down-town by a little after ten."
She nodded toward the neighboring bookshop. "I've been in there buying something for Lulu to read. She's bored." She threw these explanations aside as irrelevant to anything we had to say, now that we had met. "Where have you been all these weeks? Why didn't you let me know—?"
"How could I let you know? I called at your old house, and you were gone."
"You could have easily found out. If you'd merely called up Central she would have told you the new address of our number. It wasn't kind of you."
"Sometimes we have things to do more pressing than just being kind."