“No. We—we have a roomer now. He is very much interested. I should like to tell him.”
He dropped her hands and looked at her in mock severity.
“Much interested! Is he in love with you?”
“Mercy, no!”
“I don't believe it. I'm jealous. You know, I've always been more than half in love with you myself!”
Play for him—the same victorious instinct that had made him touch Miss Harrison's fingers as she gave him the instrument. And Sidney knew how it was meant; she smiled into his eyes and drew down her veil briskly.
“Then we'll say at three,” she said calmly, and took an orderly and unflurried departure.
But the little seed of tenderness had taken root. Sidney, passing in the last week or two from girlhood to womanhood,—outgrowing Joe, had she only known it, as she had outgrown the Street,—had come that day into her first contact with a man of the world. True, there was K. Le Moyne. But K. was now of the Street, of that small world of one dimension that she was leaving behind her.
She sent him a note at noon, with word to Tillie at Mrs. McKee's to put it under his plate:—
DEAR MR. LE MOYNE,—I am so excited I can hardly write. Dr. Wilson, the surgeon, is going to take me through the hospital this afternoon. Wish me luck. SIDNEY PAGE.