The young man—for he was plainly not far beyond thirty—halted and regarded the young woman on the horse.
"I wish to give this young gentleman here a quarter," said Jane. "He was very good about holding my horse."
The words were not spoken before the young gentleman darted across the narrow street and into a yard hidden by masses of clematis, morning glory and sweet peas. And Jane realized that she had wholly mistaken the meaning of that hypnotic stare.
Victor laughed—the small figure, the vast clothes, the bare feet with voluminous trousers about them made a ludicrous sight. "He doesn't want it," said Victor. "Thank you just the same."
"But I want him to have it," said Jane.
With a significant unconscious glance at her costume Dorn said: "Those costumes haven't reached our town yet."
"He did some work for me. I owe it to him."
"He's my sister's little boy," said Dorn, with his amiable, friendly smile. "We mustn't start him in the bad way of expecting pay for politeness."
Jane colored as if she had been rebuked, when in fact his tone forbade the suggestion of rebuke. There was an unpleasant sparkle in her eyes as she regarded the young man in the baggy suit, with the basket on his arm. "I beg your pardon," said she coldly. "I naturally didn't know your peculiar point of view."
"That's all right," said Dorn carelessly. "Thank you, and good day." And with a polite raising of the hat and a manner of good humored friendliness that showed how utterly unconscious he was of her being offended at him, he hastened across the street and went in at the gate where the boy had vanished. And Jane had the sense that he had forgotten her. She glanced nervously up at the window to see whether Selma Gordon was witnessing her humiliation—for so she regarded it. But Selma was evidently lost in a world of her own. "She doesn't love him," Jane decided. "For, even though she is a strange kind of person, she's a woman—and if she had loved him she couldn't have helped watching while he talked with another woman—especially with one of my appearance and class."