“No. There can’t be many as nice. There’s one in Chicago that—well, we won’t say it is better, because we ought to be loyal to our own city, but it’s by way of peachiness,” said the young man, and his smile was as gay and bright as Cis’s own, and it revealed two dimples to her one.
“I don’t have to be loyal to Beaconhite,” said Cis. “I’m a stranger, staying in this hotel, but I don’t mind sticking up for its bootblack.”
“I fancy you’d be good at sticking up for anything that you felt belonged to you,” said the young man, and Cis suddenly perceived that he was not as young a man as she had at first thought him. His brilliant coloring, his grace and charm gave him the effect of greater youth than was his. Cis decided that he was well on in his twenties, if not just beyond them, and this somewhat checked her readiness to take him on in the capacity of good fellowship. Yet this was silly, she told herself; a good fellow was one at any age. What did it matter if this one were anywhere from five to ten years her senior?
“You aren’t a Beaconhitette then?” he went on. “That’s hard luck. Now I am. I wasn’t always; came here last year, in fact, but I’m living here, and may go on living here, till I cease living altogether. You’re a jolly girl; you ought to stay.”
His eyes were keen on Cis’s face, handsome eyes, softly blue, somewhat veiled by dark lashes, yet seeing eyes that could be keen as they now were, studying this singular girl who was so ready to talk, yet did not strike him as bold, but rather as maidenly. “Boyish sort, I think, but you never can be sure of them at first,” thought the man.
“I may stay on,” Cis was answering meanwhile. “I came to stay, if things worked out; got tired of the place where I’d always lived, and jumped off. I’ve a letter to Mr. Lucas, here, and he may have a position for me by Monday.”
“You’re one of the independent army, then?” asked the young man. “Well, you don’t look like a pampered, spoiled one! (This partly explains her”) he thought. “Do you mean Wilmer Lucas? Dear me! Your letter was addressed high up in the line of this town; Wilmer Lucas is the big man of Beaconhite!”
“That’s the way he struck me,” agreed Cis. “There’s a chair vacant for you.”
“Certainly not; you take it,” protested the young man.
“Not a bit of it! You were here first; I’m not one of the sort that wants to grab privilege, because I’m a girl. I’m in the world like a man, and I like give and take; straight play. Besides, I’m just killing time; I’ve nowhere to go, nothing to do till I get my position—if I do!” said Cis.