"Hum; yes," assented Mr. Hickey thoughtfully. He was striving in his dull masculine way to account for the wan, woe-begone expression of Miss Tripp's face and for the telltale drops on her thick brown lashes. "I was on my way to luncheon when I saw you," he went on. "—Er—have you—lunched, Miss Tripp?"
Evelyn shook her head. "Is it as late as that?" she said. "I ought to go——"
"Not back to Mrs. Brewster's," he said; "it's too late for that.—Er—won't you give me the—er—the pleasure of lunching with you? I—er—in fact, I'm exceedingly hungry myself, and——"
Mr. Hickey stopped short and looked about him somewhat wildly. It had just occurred to him that he could not invite Miss Tripp to accompany him to the business men's lunchroom where he usually took his unimportant meal, and he wondered what sort of a place women went to anyway, and what they ate?
The experienced Miss Tripp smiled; she appeared to read his thoughts with an ease which astonished while it frightened him a little.
"It is very good of you to ask me, Mr. Hickey," she said prettily, "and I shall be very happy to take lunch with you. Do you go to Daniels'? It is such a nice place, I think, and not far up the street."
"Oh—er—yes; certainly. I like Daniels' exceedingly. A good place, very. We'll—ah—just step across and—— Oh, I beg your pardon!"
Mr. Hickey was so agitated by the sudden and unprecedented position in which he found himself that he almost knocked Miss Tripp's hat off with a sudden swoop of his umbrella, as they crossed the street.
"How stupid of me!" he cried, as she put it straight with one little hand, smiling up at him forgivingly as she did it. "I'm an awkward sort of a chap, anyway," he went on with another illustrative jab of the umbrella. "I guess I'm hopeless as—er—a ladies' man."