"At any rate," she said to herself, "he is nice. I like him, and I am sure he likes me, and we shall enjoy ourselves on Hampstead Heath. It won't be so hot there; it will be a little bit of the country. I must send mother the five pounds, and I suppose I need not decide about that awful manuscript till Monday."
These thoughts had scarcely come into her head before there came a knock at her door. Florence went to open it, and Edith Franks, very neatly dressed, and looking business-like and purposeful, with bright eyes and a clear colour in her cheeks, stood on the threshold.
"How do you do?" she said. "I am just off to my work. I am about to have a very hard day, but I thought I would refresh myself with a sight of you. May I come in?"
"Please do," said Florence, but she did not look altogether happy as she gave the invitation. Her bed was unmade, her dressing things were lying about, her breakfast was just the sort which she did not wish the keen-eyed medical student to see. There was no help for it, however. Edith Franks had come up for the purpose of spying into the nakedness of the land, and spy she did. She looked quickly round her in that darting, bird-like manner which characterised all her movements. She saw the untidy room, she noticed the humble, insufficient meal.
Edith Franks had the kindest heart in the world; but she was sometimes a little, just a very little destitute of tact.
"My dear," she said, "may I sit down? Your stairs really take one's breath away. I know now what I specially came for. Tom has promised to call for me this morning."
"Who is Tom?" asked Florence.
"Don't you know? What a short memory you have! I told you something about him last night—my clever journalist brother. He is on the staff of the Daily Tidings, and the new six-penny magazine that people talk so much about, the Argonaut. He has a splendid post, and has great influence. If you will entrust that precious manuscript to me, I will let Tom see it. He is the best of judges. If he says it is worth anything, your fortune is made. If, on the other hand—"
"Oh, but he won't like it, and I think I would rather not," said Florence. She turned very pale as she spoke. Edith gave her another glance.
"Let me have it," she said. "Tom's seeing it means nothing. I will get him to run his eye over it while we are at lunch together. Here, get it for me; there's a good girl."