"Yes," he agreed, "she'd be perfect there in an organdy frock with the sun slanting across her face. But—well, she's just like other girls. Tell a pretty girl that she's clever, they say, and tell a clever girl that she's a raving, tearing beauty. That's the way for a man to be popular!"
The Superintendent laughed quietly with him. It was a moment before she grew sober again.
"I wonder," she said at last, "why you have never tried to be popular with girls. You could so easily be popular. You're young and—don't try to hush me up—good-looking. And yet—well, you're such an antagonistic person. From the very first you've laughed at Rose-Marie—and she was quite ready to adore you when she arrived. How do I know? Oh, I could tell! Take the child seriously, Billy Blanchard, before she actually begins to dislike you!"
The Young Doctor put several bottles of violently coloured pills into his bag before he spoke.
"She dislikes me already," he said. "She's such a cool little person. What are you trying to do, anyway? Are you trying to matchmake; to stir up a love affair between the both of us—" suddenly he was laughing again.
"I'm too busy to have a romance, you old dear," he told the Superintendent, "far too busy. I'm as likely to fall in love, just now, as you are!"
The woman's face was averted as she answered. But her low voice was steady.
"When I was your age, Billy," she said gently, "I was in love. That's why, perhaps, I came here. That's why, perhaps, I stayed. No, he didn't die—he married another girl. And dreams are hard things to forget. That's why I left the country. Maybe that's why the little Thompson girl—"
But the Young Doctor was shaking his head.
"She hasn't had any love affair," he told the Superintendent. "She's too young and full of ideals to have anything so ordinary as a romance. Everybody," his laugh was not too pleasant, "can have a romance! And few people can be so filled with ideals as Miss Thompson. Oh, it's her ideals that I can't stand! It's her impractical way of gazing at life through pink-coloured glasses. She'll never be of any real use here in the slums. I'm only afraid that she'll come to some harm because she's so trusting and over-sincere. I'd hate to see her placed in direct contact with some of the young men that I work with, for instance. You haven't—" All at once his voice took on a new note. "You haven't let her be with any of the boys' classes, have you? Her ideals might not stand the strain!"