A subtle change had come over the child's face. He slid, hurriedly, from the bench.
"Oh," he said, "yer one o' them! You sing hymns 'n' pray 'n' tell folks t' take baths. I know. Well, I can't bring Lily t' see you—not ever!"
Rose-Marie had also risen to her feet.
"Then," she said eagerly, "let me come and see Lily. Where do you live?"
The boy's eyes had fallen. It was plain that he did not want to answer—that he was experiencing the almost inarticulate embarrassment of childhood.
"We live," he told her at last, "in that house over there." His pointing finger indicated the largest and grimiest of the tenements that loomed, dark and high, above the squalor of a side street. "But you wouldn't wanter come—there!"
Rose-Marie caught her breath sharply. She was remembering how the Superintendent had forbidden her to do visiting, how the Young Doctor had laughed at her desire to be of service. She knew what they would say if she told them that she was going into a tenement to see a strange child named Lily. Perhaps that was why her voice had an excited ring as she answered.
"Yes, I would come there!" she told the boy. "Tell me what floor you live on, and what your name is, and when it would be best for me to come?"
"My name's Bennie Volsky," the boy said slowly. "We're up five flights, in th' back. D'yer really mean that you'll come—an' see Lily?"
Rose-Marie nodded soberly. How could the child know that her heart was all athrob with the call of a great adventure?