She saw also the splendor of the shop windows. She had a distinct love for beautiful fabrics as works of art, but she cared less for dress than one would suppose to see her pass lingeringly before great luminous cataracts of drapery. She was quietly dressed, and gracefully dressed, beyond this she had never cared to go, but she constructed wonderful homes and owners out of the glimpses of these windows, and from the passing of graceful young girls, clothed like duchesses, and painted (some of them) like women of the under world.
It all grew oppressive and disheartening to her at last, and she boarded a State street car (the only car she knew) and took her way up home. All the people in the car looked at her as if she had intruded into a private drawing room.
She was evidently from the country, for, though it was in the day of quaintness, she wore her hair plain. It was also the middle period of the curious and inexplicable little swagger which all duly-informed girls assumed, but Rose walked on her strong elastic feet with a powerful swing which was worth going miles to see. It was due to her unconscious imitation of the proud carriage of William De Lisle. She loved that forward swing of the thigh, with the flex of the side which accompanied it. It was her ideal of motion, that free action of knee, waist and neck, which she felt rather than saw in the great athlete.
She made a goodly figure to look at, and it was no especial wonder that the people in the car faced her. Her forehead was prominent and her eyes were sombre. It was impossible for the casual observer to define why she made so marked an impression upon him. It was because she was so fresh and strong, and unaffected and unconscious.
Pure men did not smile at her as they might at a pretty girl. They looked at her with wide, quiet eyes, and she knew they meant to be perfectly respectful. There was one man looking at her like that when she looked up to pay the conductor. There was a deep sorrowful look in his eyes, and his face, too, was sad.
She did not understand his mood, but was moved by it. When she looked at him again he dropped his eyes to his paper. He was a large man of thirty or more, and had a rugged, serious face. She remembered it long afterwards.
At lunch she found no one but Mr. Taylor. He loomed up at the further end of the table, his gaunt, grave face and broad shoulders towering up like a farmer's. She studied him closely, now that she knew more about him. He had a big, wide, plain face, with gentle gray eyes. His beard was trimmed round and made him look older than he was. He was a man into whose eyes women could look unafraid and unabashed. He greeted Rose with a smile.
"I'm very glad you've come. I was afraid I should eat lunch alone. With your permission I'll move down to your end of the table."
Rose was very glad to have him take a seat near, and they were friends at once. They naturally fell upon Mary as a topic. Mr. Taylor spoke of her quietly:
"Mary's a fine girl," he said. "I don't like to see her work. I don't like to see any woman do work like that. I don't claim any right to say what women shall do or not do, but I imagine they wouldn't go into shops if they were not, in a way, forced into it."