He surprised her.
“Do you mean to say that you’ve brought me my milk all this time and that I’ve never seen you before!” she cried. “Why, you are one of the most important people in my life!”
The boy grinned; he was a very clean boy, in a cap, shirt-sleeves and an apron almost as white as his milk—for was he not born and bred in Shepherd’s Market, which is the aristocrat of slums?
“Well, it’s a bit early for you to be up as a rule, lady,” he excused her.
“Or a bit late,” she added softly. “And I’m not a lady anyway—not really. I had a brother just like you. Not so clean, though.”
The boy didn’t believe any of that. No one but a lady could have so suddenly pulled the cardboard disc from the bottle of milk and raised it to her lips, as she was doing now. The boy stared at her; he had seen her look after the one-armed man, and he was interested. Nothing like that had ever happened to him.
The lady drank deep of the milk. And then she said, with a happy sigh: “I needed that!” She could feel, and the boy could see, the white dew of the milk clinging about her mouth. “I’ve forgotten my handkerchief,” she complained.
The boy tugged at his pocket and pulled out an amazingly crumpled but amazingly clean handkerchief. He offered it to her shyly.
“Not used it yet,” he said.
She touched her lips with his handkerchief, and she offered him some milk in return.