“Pardon me,” said Burgess as she stepped away from the cage——“those are badly worn bills. Let me exchange them for you.”
“Oh, thank you; but it doesn’t matter,” she said.
Without parleying he stepped to the exchange window, which was free at the moment, and spoke to one of the clerks. The girl opened her reticule and when he turned round she handed him the bills. While the clerk went for the new currency Burgess spoke of the weather and remarked upon the menace of worn bills to public health. They always meant to give women fresh bills, he said; and he wished she would insist upon having them. He was a master of the art of being agreeable, and in his view it was nothing against a woman that she had fine eyes and an engaging smile. Her voice was pleasant to hear and her cheeks dimpled charmingly when she smiled.
“All money looks good to me,” she said, thrusting the new bills into her satchel; “but new money is certainly nicer. It always seems like more!”
“But you ought to count that,” Burgess protested, not averse to prolonging the conversation. “There’s always the possibility of a mistake.”
“Well, if there is I’ll come back. You’d remember——”
“Oh, yes! I’d remember,” replied Burgess with a smile, and then he added hastily: “In a bank it’s our business to remember faces!”
“Oh!” said the girl, looking down at her reticule.
Her “oh!” had in it the faintest, the obscurest hint of irony. He wondered whether she resented the idea that he would remember her merely because it was a bank’s business to remember faces. Possibly—but no! As she smiled and dimpled he put from him the thought that she wished to give a flirtatious turn to this slight chance interview there in the open lobby of his own bank. Reassured by the smite, supported by the dimples, he said:
“I’m Mr. Burgess; I work here.”