“Oh, yes!” said the conductor. “Of course you dropped it! But you just happened to be where you wanted to get off when you dropped it, though, didn’t you?”
She gave a miserable, deprecating smile, anxious only to escape from this humiliation, to get away. When suddenly that young man had got up, put a dime into the conductor’s register, and raised his hat ceremoniously to Rosaleen.
“Allow me!” he had said.
“Oh! Thank you!” she had cried. “Thank you!...”
“Not at all!” said he.
She had resumed her seat on the bench ahead of him, and tried to look with exaggerated interest at the street. But she was terribly distressed. She felt that she hadn’t said enough—not nearly enough. Surely she ought at least to suggest repaying him, or something of that sort;—not to sit there and ride along, with her back turned to him.
And though of course she couldn’t know it, he was just as troubled. He had heard her say that she had dropped a quarter, and it occurred to him that she might very well need the rest of it badly, for more carfare, perhaps, or something else very necessary.... In the course of time the idea became intolerable. He leaned forward and touched her gently on the shoulder; and she had turned to regard him with alarmed grey eyes.
“I beg your pardon...” he began. “But ... I’d be very glad ... if you would permit me....”
He saw that she didn’t comprehend.
“I overheard you say that it was a quarter you had dropped,” he said. “If you—perhaps you particularly wanted the change...?”