There was a moment's pause while the waiter placed the soup before them. Somehow, Barry had a feeling that the girl was more than hungry, and, though he did not see how he could take a mouthful after his luxurious dinner at the Waldorf, he did his best to seem ravenous himself, talking all the while, so that she might not see how little he was really eating.
The girl sipped the bouillon slowly and leisurely, listening to her companion's whimsical account of his progress down Fifth Avenue that night, and occasionally making a light comment of her own. One would never have guessed, to watch her, that she could have drained the cup at a single swallow.
Lawrence's surmise as to her desperate condition was more the result of intuition, helped on a little by details he observed from time to time, rather than anything he saw in her manner.
Little by little it was borne upon his consciousness that the extraordinary trimness which had puzzled him at first was nothing more than the painful neatness of extreme poverty, combined with innate good taste. The wide black hat was simply trimmed, and showed signs of wear. The perfectly fitting suit was of good material, but had been brushed and sponged until it was almost threadbare. The shirt waist of fine cambric looked as if it had been washed time and again with jealous care by the girl's own hands. On one sleeve a tear had been repaired with painful neatness.
All this Barry noticed as he talked on, wondering to himself how under the sun a cousin of his fastidious, seemingly wealthy, college mate could possibly have been reduced to such straits. But he asked no questions, nor did he in his manner betray the slightest touch of curiosity. He was only too thankful to see, under the influence of warmth and comfort and nourishing food, the color coming back into the girl's face, the sparkle to her eyes, and that tired droop of her mouth growing less and less noticeable.
As the meal progressed, however, his curiosity was gratified. It was inevitable that the discovery of a mutual friend should make some difference in the girl's attitude toward Lawrence. From discussing Calvert—who, it appeared, had been in Manila for over a year—the girl's story came out bit by bit.
More than likely Shirley Rives would never have thought of starting out to tell it to any one from beginning to end. But, while he did not express it by a single word, she seemed to feel Barry's sympathy, and be comforted by it. She had been bearing her troubles alone for so long that the temptation to talk a little about them to some one else was irresistible. And, last of all, she, too, seemed to feel that night something of Barry's attitude toward fate. She had come to the end of her rope, and was desperate. When one is in that pass conventions seem very petty, and life is stripped to the bones.
The story Lawrence gathered from a chance word here, a sentence there, was very old and hackneyed. It was really threadbare, yet the personality of the girl across the table lent it a vivid, enthralling interest.
Orphaned a year before, and left in straitened circumstances, Shirley Rives had taken the few hundred dollars remaining after the settlement of the encumbered estate, and come to New York to earn her living. Having no particular talent, and no influence, stenography seemed the only thing left her. She took a course in a correspondence school, and then obtained a position. Three months later the firm changed its organization, and she was cast adrift. She got another place, after eating into her diminishing capital, but the wholesale company was presently absorbed by a trust. Another period of enforced idleness ensued before she was taken on in a broker's office, only to be forced to leave by the unwelcome attentions of a junior partner.
That was three weeks ago. Since then she had failed to find anything. Her money became exhausted, and the board bill remained unpaid. The landlady gave her notice to pay or leave. The room had been rented late in the afternoon to another woman. Since then she had walked the streets, dazed, bewildered, not knowing what to do or where to go.