The man turned with a sharp movement, and looked at her. "Why I—I don't know that I ever was. Not seriously, you know."
"Well, I have been."
Joyce pushed up the sleeve of her jacket and drew down her glove with a quick motion, full of repressed intensity. He had just a glimpse of a red scar on the white flesh when, with as sudden a motion and a rosy flush, she dropped her arm and let the sleeve fall over her wrist, then added more gently,
"One knows how it hurts when one has suffered oneself. I was only eight years old, but I have never forgotten the day I tripped and fell against a red-hot stove—and I had the tenderest and most constant care, too."
Had Joyce been looking at her companion's face she would no doubt have been made furious by its expression. If ever a laugh struggled in a man's eyes, trying to break bounds, it struggled now in George Dalton's gray orbs! After an instant, which Joyce fondly imagined was given to silent sympathy, he said gently,
"Burns are serious things, I know. Miss Lavillotte, I began stroking for the furnaces here when I was eight years old. I think"—looking off in an impersonal manner, as if reckoning a problem,—"that from that time on to fourteen, at least, I was never without burns on face, hands or arms. Probably I grew used to them."
Joyce looked up quickly. He was quite serious now, and seemed almost to have forgotten the subject up between them. Joyce felt suddenly very young, and she devoutly wished she had never consented to this detestable visit with her manager. Then pride came to her aid, and she asked deliberately, with an intrepid air,
"I doubt if people ever really get used to pain. Do you think the doctor will be through with that boy in half an hour?"
"Possibly. Of course I don't know the extent of his injuries."
"Let us hurry then," doubling her pace. "I shall have none too much time before the 2.39 train, and we must take that, as I have an engagement in the city. Ellen, am I tiring you?"