"Oh!" he exclaimed, his face lighting up. "Of course, I remember now. Joan Thursday—to be sure! You left me a little note of thanks. I've often wondered what became of you."
"I've been living here, right in this house, ever since."
"You don't mean it. How very odd! I should think we'd have met before this, if that's the case."
"You've had plenty of chances," she laughed, feeling a little more at ease. She rested her head against the back of the chair and regarded him through half-lowered lashes, conscious that the lamplight was doing full justice to her prettiness. "I've seen you dozens of times."
"That's funny!" he observed, genuinely perplexed. "I don't see how that could have happened—!"
"You were always too busy thinking about something else to look at poor me," she returned; and then, intuitively sensitive to the affectation of the adjective "poor" (a trick picked up from one of Maizie's women friends) she amended it hastily: "at me, I mean."
"Well, I don't understand it, but I apologize for my rudeness, just the same," he laughed; and sat down, understanding that the girl wanted something and meant to stay until she got it, wondering what it could be, and a little annoyed to have his working time thus gratuitously interrupted. "So," he ventured, "you fixed things up to stop here, did you? At least, I seem to remember you—ah—weren't in very good form, financially, that night we met."
"Yes," she said, "I fixed it up all right. I'd lost my money, but the next day I found it again, and I came back here because I didn't know where else to go, and besides there was my friends upstairs—the Deans, you know."
"Oh, yes, to be sure. And did they help you find work on the stage? You did want to go on the stage, if I'm not mistaken."
"Yes; that's why I left home, you know. But they didn't help me any—the Deans didn't—at least, not exactly; though it was through them I met a fellow who took me on for a vaudeville turn."