"My friend's ill. He's got typhoid."
"That is bad. But he'll get all right. They always cure typhoid, nowadays—if it's taken in time and the nursing's good. Everything depends on the nursing. I had it a couple of years ago, and pulled through easily."
Susan brightened. He spoke so confidently that the appeal to her young credulity toward good news and the hopeful, cheerful thing was irresistible. "Oh, yes—he'll be over it soon," the young man went on, "especially if he's in a hospital where they've got the facilities for taking care of sick people. Where is he?"
"In the hospital—up that way." She moved her head vaguely in the direction of the northwest.
"Oh, yes. It's a good one—for the pay patients. I suppose for the poor devils that can't pay"—he glanced with careless sympathy at the dozen or so tramps on benches nearby—"it's like all the rest of 'em—like the whole world, for that matter. It must be awful not to have money enough to get on with, I mean. I'm talking about men." He smiled cheerfully. "With a woman—if she's pretty—it's different, of course."
The girl was so agitated that she did not notice the sly, if shy, hint in the remark and its accompanying glance. Said she:
"But it's a good hospital if you pay?"
"None better. Maybe it's good straight through. I've only heard the servants' talk—and servants are such liars. Still—I'd not want to trust myself to a hospital unless I could pay. I guess the common people have good reason for their horror of free wards. Nothing free is ever good."
The girl's face suddenly and startlingly grew almost hard, so fierce was the resolve that formed within her. The money must be got—must!—and would. She would try every way she could think of between now and to-morrow; then—if she failed she would go to Blynn.
The young man was saying: "You're a stranger in town?"