Rosedale remained seated, too intent on his thoughts to notice her movement. “Miss Lily, if you want any backing—I like pluck——” broke from him disconnectedly.
“Thank you.” She held out her hand. “Your tea has given me a tremendous backing. I feel equal to anything now.”
Her gesture seemed to show a definite intention of dismissal, but her companion had tossed a bill to the waiter, and was slipping his short arms into his expensive overcoat.
“Wait a minute—you’ve got to let me walk home with you,” he said.
Lily uttered no protest, and when he had paused to make sure of his change they emerged from the hotel and crossed Sixth Avenue again. As she led the way westward past a long line of areas which, through the distortion of their paintless rails, revealed with increasing candour the DISJECTA MEMBRA of bygone dinners, Lily felt that Rosedale was taking contemptuous note of the neighbourhood; and before the doorstep at which she finally paused he looked up with an air of incredulous disgust.
“This isn’t the place? Some one told me you were living with Miss Farish.”
“No: I am boarding here. I have lived too long on my friends.”
He continued to scan the blistered brown stone front, the windows draped with discoloured lace, and the Pompeian decoration of the muddy vestibule; then he looked back at her face and said with a visible effort: “You’ll let me come and see you some day?”
She smiled, recognizing the heroism of the offer to the point of being frankly touched by it. “Thank you—I shall be very glad,” she made answer, in the first sincere words she had ever spoken to him.