They had reached the old print shop; and, as they paused beneath the cedars in the front yard, Stephen glanced up at the window under the quaint shingled roof. The upper storey, he knew, was rented to a couple of tenants, and he was not surprised when he saw the curtains of dotted swiss pushed aside and a woman's face look down on him over the red geranium on the window-sill. The face was familiar; but, while he stared back at it, searching his memory for a resemblance, the white curtains dropped together again, veiling the features. Where had he seen that woman before? What association of ideas did the sight of her recall? In a flash, while he still groped through mental obscurity, light broke on him.
"Who is that woman, Corinna?" he asked. "What do you know of her?"
"That woman?" Corinna repeated; then, as he lifted his eyes to the window, she added, "Oh, that's Mrs. Green. A pathetic face, isn't it? I know nothing about her except that she came in a few weeks ago, and the caretaker tells me that she is leaving to-morrow."
"Do you know where she came from?"
"My dear Stephen! Why, what in the world?" A laugh broke from Corinna's lips. "Did you ever see her before?"
"Twice, and both times in the Capitol Square. I thought her dreadful to look at."
"I've only glanced at her, but she appeared to me more pathetic than dreadful. She has been ill, I imagine, and she looks terribly poor. I'm afraid the rent is too high, but I can't do anything, for she rented her room from the tenants. I suppose, poor thing, that she is merely a sad adventuress, and it is not the sad adventuresses, but the glad ones, who usually enlist a young man's sympathy. By the way, I am lunching with the Governor to-morrow."
"Is it a party?"
"No, just the family. That shows how intimate I have become with the Vetches. Don't tell Cousin Harriet, or she would think I was beginning to corrupt your politics. But I may use my influence to find out what the Governor intends to do about the strike, and a cousin with a political secret is worth having."
With a laugh Stephen went on his way, wondering vaguely what there was about the woman at the window, Mrs. Green Corinna had called her, that made it impossible for him to rid his mind of her? Glancing back from the end of the block, he saw that Corinna had entered the shop and that the curtains at the upper window had been pushed back again while the dim face of Mrs. Green looked down into the street. Was she watching for some one? Or was she merely relieving the monotony of life indoors by gazing down into Franklin Street at an hour when it was almost deserted?