Miss Brent had paused abruptly on the deserted pavement.
"No, don't go on—if you want me to think well of you," she flashed out.
Amherst met the thrust composedly, perceiving, as she turned to face him, that what she resented was not so much his insinuation against his superiors as his allusion to the youthfulness of her sentiments. She was, in fact, as he now noticed, still young enough to dislike being excused for her youth. In her severe uniform of blue linen, her dusky skin darkened by the nurse's cap, and by the pale background of the hospital walls, she had seemed older, more competent and experienced; but he now saw how fresh was the pale curve of her cheek, and how smooth the brow clasped in close waves of hair.
"I began at the wrong end," he acknowledged. "But let me put Dillon's case before you dismiss me."
She softened. "It is only because of my interest in that poor fellow that I am here——"
"Because you think he needs help—and that you can help him?"
But she held back once more. "Please tell me about him first," she said, walking on.
Amherst met the request with another question. "I wonder how much you know about factory life?"
"Oh, next to nothing. Just what I've managed to pick up in these two days at the hospital."
He glanced at her small determined profile under its dark roll of hair, and said, half to himself: "That might be a good deal."