He sneezed again.
"It was too bad," Hertha exclaimed. "It's so hard to be ill away from home."
"I reckon it is! Your meals set down by the side of your bed, the gruel cold and full of lumps, no one to growl at when your head aches and you can't go to sleep! It's a mighty poor state of things."
"I'm afraid you were pretty sick."
"Just missed pneumonia."
"You ought not to have come out to-night." Hertha spoke with emphasis.
"Oh, I'm all hunky now. I've sat in the library most every night since they let me out. Wouldn't they grin at home if they saw me fooling this way with books! Why, I know more news out of the magazines this month than all of Casper County ever knew since the first moonshiner set up his still! I'm reeking with information. But I bet you're reading one of those three-volume novels they tell about that last a year. I couldn't wait any longer, so I came to headquarters."
"How did you get my address?" Hertha had not meant to ask the question, but it slipped out unawares.
"Don't make me explain, please. It's against all the rules and regulations and the librarian only told because at times I'm a beautiful liar."
His thin face, looking thinner than ever from his sickness, wore a worried expression, and one of his long hands moved nervously against his side. At home he was accounted a confident youth who could grab up a girl and swing away with her a little faster than the next man, but here in New York he was off his ground. Moreover, this very pretty young woman with her aristocratic ways gave him no help, but sat quite silent as though questioning what right he had in her home. Awkwardly he rose and played his last card.