The indignant color faded out of the woman's face. "If you really want the thing—" abruptly she put her bizarre possession into her strange visitor's lap—"If you really want it—but I don't see—" yearning crept into her work-dimmed eyes, a yearning that seemed to struggle with disillusionment. "Tell me," she broke off, "is that all you came here for?"
Apparently oblivious to the question, the young woman rose to her feet. "You'll sell it to me then!" she triumphed, opening her gold-bound purse.
"But, see here," demurred the woman, "I can't—it ain't worth——"
The girl's gloved hands went fumbling into her purse, while the old fur cape hung limply across one velvet arm.
"You leave it to me," she commanded, and smiled, a radiant, winning smile.
Impulsively the woman drew close to her guest. "Excuse me," she faltered, "but, do you know—you look ever-so-much like a little niece of mine back—home?"
"Do I? That's nice." The visitor looked at her watch. A note of abstraction had crept into her beautiful voice, but it still held the caress that invited the woman's confidence.
"Yes, my little niece—excuse me—I haven't seen her for twelve years—most fifteen years, I guess. She'd be growed up, but I thought—when I saw you down-town——"
"Oh, you remember me, then! Forgive me for following—" The girl seized the woman's soap-reddened hands in a sudden fervent clasp. "I understand," she breathed. "You must be lonely…. I'll try to see you again—I surely will…. Good-bye…."
The girl was gone and all at once the room seemed colder and dingier than it ever had before. But the woman was not cold. As she sat huddled on the cot, warmth and vitality glowed within her, kindled by the memory of a recent kindly human touch.