"Yes. That's where I first saw you the other afternoon and I followed you here."
That seemed to her of no importance. "Friend?" she said frowning and staring in front of her. "I don't like that word. Two or three have wanted to be friends. I won't have friends. I won't have anybody. I'd rather be alone."
"I can't hurt you," said Henry very simply. "Why every one laughs at me, even my sister who's very fond of me. They won't laugh, one day, of course, but you see how it is. There's always ink on my nose, or I tumble down when I want to do something important. You'd have thought the army would have changed that, but it didn't."
She smiled then. "No, you don't look as though you'd hurt anybody. But I don't want to trust people. It only means you're disappointed again."
"You can't be disappointed in me," Henry said earnestly. "Because I'm just what you see. Please let me come and see you. I want it more than I've ever wanted anything in my life."
They both heard then steps on the stair. They stopped and listened. The room was at once ominous, alarmed.
Henry felt danger approaching, as though he could see beyond the door with his eyes and found on the stair some dark shape, undefined and threatening. The steps came nearer and ceased. Two were there listening on the other side of the door as two were listening within the room.
He felt the girl's fear and that suddenly stiffened his own courage. It was almost ludicrous then when the door opened and revealed the stout Mrs. Tenssen, clothed now in light orange and with her an old man.
Henry saw at once that however eagerly she had hitherto expected him she was not easy at his presence just now. His further glance at the old man showed him at once an enemy for life. In any case he did not like old men. The War had carried him with the rest upon the swing of that popular cry "Every one over seventy to the lethal chamber."
Moreover, he personally knew no old men, which made the cry much simpler. This old man was not over seventy, he might indeed be still under sixty, but his small peak of a white beard, his immaculate clothing and his elegantly pointed patent leather shoes were sufficient for Henry. Immaculate old men! How dared they wear anything but sackcloth and ashes?