“I don’t care!” she said to herself. “I won’t go away like this!”
At last she stopped a cab.
“If he sees me—” she thought.
For somehow she, who knew so little of love and life, knew that if he saw her his stubborn pride would be melted. She must do it, at any cost to her own pride.
Terribly pale, she entered the hall of the apartment house where he lived. The hall boy came forward.
“Mr. Randall? I’ll telephone up.”
“N-no, thank you,” she said. “I’ll just go up.”
“It’s the rule—” the boy began; but after a glance at her pale, set face he resigned himself with a sigh, and took her up in the elevator.
He watched her going along the hall, so slender and straight, still with the serious book under her arm.
She rang the bell, and waited. She rang again, and the door was flung open with a crash by a cheerful, fair-haired young fellow.