The gentleman gazed at her suspiciously. "I have no money for beggars," he said, and he turned his broad back squarely on her.
'Tilda Jane, for one so obstinate, was strangely sensitive. With her face in a flame of colour, she rose. Had any one else heard the insult? No, not a man in the car was looking her way.
"I'm a poor little girl," she breathed over the gentleman's substantial shoulder, "but I'm no beggar. I guess I work as hard as you do. I wanted you to lend me a dollar or so to be sent back in a letter, but I wouldn't take it now—no, not if you crawled after me on your hands an' knees like a dog holdin' it in your mouth," and precipitately leaving him, she sauntered down the aisle.
The gentleman turned around, and with an amazed face gazed after her. Stay—there she was pausing by the seat in which was his son. Should he warn him against the youthful adventuress? No, he was old enough to take care of himself, and he settled back in his corner and devoted himself to his paper.
The only person in the last seat in the car was a lad of seventeen or eighteen who was neither reading nor smoking, but lounging across it, while he suppressed innumerable yawns. He was very handsome, and he looked lazy and good-natured, and to him 'Tilda Jane accordingly addressed herself. She had hesitated, after the rebuff she had received, to apply to any of those other men with their resolved, middle-aged or elderly faces. This lad she was not at all afraid of, and resting Gippie on the arm of his seat, she stared admiringly at him.
He straightened himself. Here was something interesting, and his yawns ceased.
"Well, miss, what can I do for you?" he inquired, mischievously, as she continued to stare at him without speaking.
He would lend her the money, she knew it before she asked him. There was something else in her mind now, and her little sharp eyes were full of tears.
"Is anything the matter with you?" he asked, politely.