“As good as old times,” she said. “I’ve often seen you pass the window, but I thought you wouldn’t want to know me.”

“And why not?”

“Because of what happened.”

“Rapson?”

She flushed and hung her head. I wondered if she meant what I thought she meant.

I hated to see her sad; she looked so young and pretty. I began to ask her what she was doing.

“Doing! Minding shop, remembering, growing old, and earning my living. It’s just horrid to be here, Dante. I have to watch you ’Varsity men having a good time—and once I belonged to your set. And they come in and stare at me, and pay me silly compliments—and I have to smile and pretend I like it. That’s what I’m paid for. They don’t know how I hate them. When they have their sweethearts and sisters up, they walk past me as though they never knew me.”

“But are they all like that?”

She smiled, and I knew she loved him. When she spoke her voice trembled. “There’s one of them is different.”

“Kitty, he’s the one I came to talk about.”