Miss Tripp said nothing. She was experiencing a quite natural revulsion of feeling, and was now exceedingly sorry that she had confided anything of her affairs to Mr. Hickey. "He'll think of course that I am making a cheap bid for sympathy—perhaps trying to borrow money of him," she thought, while a painful scarlet crept up into her pale cheeks.
Mr. Hickey was not a tactful man. He did not observe the unwonted colour in Miss Tripp's face, nor the proud light in her eyes.
"I've got more money than I know what to do with," he said bluntly, "and—er—I wish you'd allow me to——"
Miss Tripp stopped short. "Oh, Mr. Hickey," she exclaimed regretfully, "I don't know what you will think of me for accepting your kind invitation to luncheon, and then leaving you—as I must. I'd entirely forgotten an important engagement to meet—a friend of mine. I shall have to ask you to excuse me. It's too bad, isn't it? But I am so forgetful. And—please don't worry about my absurd confidences. Really, I exaggerated; I always do. We are perfectly comfortable—mother and I—only of course it was hard to lose our surplus—the jam on our bread, as I tell mother. But one can live quite comfortably on plain bread, and it is far better for one; I know that. Good-bye! So kind of you to shelter me!—No; I couldn't think of taking your umbrella! Really; don't you see the rain is over; besides, I'm going to take this car. Good-bye, and thank you so much!"
Mr. Hickey stood quite still on the corner where she had left him and stared meditatively after the car, which bore her away, for the space of two unfruitful minutes. Then he turned squarely around and plodded down town to the business men's lunchroom. He did not care, he told himself, to change his habits by lunching at Daniels', which was a foolishly expensive place and haunted by crowds of women shoppers. Women were singular things, anyway. Mr. Hickey was satisfied, on the whole, that he was not obliged to meet them often. And later in the day he was selfishly pleased that he had not been obliged to loan his umbrella; for the rain, which had ceased a little, came down in icy torrents which froze as it fell on the sidewalks and branches of the trees.
XIV
Evelyn Tripp never informed anyone where she went on the car that bore her triumphantly away from Mr. Hickey and the conversation which had suddenly grown intolerable. The intolerable part of it was her own fault, she told herself. And—well, she realised that she was paying for it, as she jounced along over mile after mile of uneven track, through unfamiliar, yet drearily monotonous streets. Damp, uncomfortable-looking people came and went, and from time to time the conductor glanced curiously at the small lady in the fashionably-cut jacket and furs, who shrank back in her corner gazing with unseeing eyes out of the dripping windows.
"Las' stop!" he shouted impatiently, as the car came to a groaning standstill away out in a shabby suburb, where several huge factories were in process of erection.