Aggie obeyed with an air of bustling activity.
“Sure, I will!” she declared. She went to the girl and helped her to stand up. “We'll fix you out all right,” she said, comfortingly. “Come along with me.... Hungry! Gee, but that's tough!”
Half an hour afterward, while Mary was at her desk, giving part of her attention to Joe Garson, who sat near, and part to a rather formidable pile of neatly arranged papers, Aggie reported with her charge, who, though still shambling of gait, and stooping, showed by some faint color in her face and an increased steadiness of bearing that the food had already strengthened her much.
“She would come,” Aggie explained. “I thought she ought to rest for a while longer anyhow.” She half-shoved the girl into a chair opposite the desk, in an absurd travesty on the maternal manner.
“I'm all right, I tell you,” came the querulous protest.
Whereupon, Aggie gave over the uncongenial task of mothering, and settled herself comfortably in a chair, with her legs merely crossed as a compromise between ease and propriety.
“Are you quite sure?” Mary said to the girl. And then, as the other nodded in assent, she spoke with a compelling kindliness. “Then you must tell us all about it—this trouble of yours, you know. What is your name?”
Once again the girl had recourse to the swift, searching, furtive glance, but her voice was colorless as she replied, listlessly:
“Helen Morris.”
Mary regarded the girl with an expression that was inscrutable when she spoke again.