"I see," David said; "I've always felt that way—even about mother. Materna has wanted to help me out lots of times, and I wouldn't let her. I could kick myself now when I think how often I have to put my hand in her pocket."
"I think," cried Elizabeth, "a man might love a girl enough to live on her money!"
"I don't," David said, soberly.
"Well," said Elizabeth, "don't worry. I haven't a cent, so you can't put your hand in my pocket! Come, we must start. I want to go and see Nannie for a minute, and Cherry-pie says I must be in before dark, because I have a cold."
"I like sitting here best," David confessed, but pulled himself up from the sofa, and in another minute Miss White, peering from an upper window, saw them walking off. "Made for each other!" said Cherry-pie, nibbling with happiness.
They had almost reached Nannie's before David said that—that he was afraid he would have to go away a month before he had planned. When he was most in earnest, his usual brevity of speech fell into a curtness that might have seemed, to one who did not know him, indifference. Elizabeth did know him, but even to her the ensuing explanation, which did not explain, was, through his very anxiety not to offend her, provokingly laconic.
"But you don't go on duty at the hospital until April," she said hotly.
"Why do you leave Mercer the first of March?"
"Materna wants time to get settled."
"Mrs. Richie told me only yesterday that she was going to a hotel," Elizabeth said; "she said she wasn't going to look for a house until the fall, because she will be at the seashore this summer. It certainly doesn't take a month to find a hotel."
"Well, the fact is, there are reasons why it isn't pleasant for Materna to be in Mercer just now."