Tricked by her uncertain nerves, Jean came under the sway of Amy's panic. They lurked cowering in the hallway till sure of a clear coast; then, darting forth, hurried round the first corner to a quieter thoroughfare which Stella would be less apt to haunt. Here, too, they continually saw her in imagination, and sought other doorways and rounded other corners for safety. Fear tracked them home, plucked at them in their own street, mounted their own steps, entered their own door, and abode with them thereafter.
Nor, for one of them at least, did the crowded weeks next following bring forgetfulness or reassurance. Jean was ever expecting the dreaded face to leer at her from the blurred horde which swam daily by the little island in the toy department, where she sold children's games. While she elucidated the mysteries of parchesi or dissected maps to some distraught mother of six, another part of the restless mechanism of her brain was painting Stella to the life. She pictured the outcast's vindictive joy at running her down, heard her mouth the unspeakable for all who would lend an ear. And who would not! She quailed in fancy before the gaping audience—the curious shoppers, the round-eyed cash-girls, the smirking clerks, Mr. Rose, the floor-walker.
Once, issuing from such a dream, she found herself face to face with Mr. Rose, who had come unnoticed to her counter, and so clear-cut was the vision, she merged the unreal with the real and blenched at his voice.
"Not taking morphine lunches, are you?" he asked, leaning solicitously over the counter.
She stared hazily till he repeated his question.
"Morphine lunches! What are they?"
The man enacted the pantomime of applying a hypodermic syringe to his arm.
"So," he said. "Some of the girls who can't lunch at home get into the way of it. Bad thing—very."
"Why should you suspect me of such a thing?" demanded Jean, indignantly. "Do I look like a morphine-fiend?"
"No offence intended. Noticed a queer look in your eyes, that's all. Stunning eyes! I'd hate to see 'em full of dope. Perfectly friendly interest, understand."