"Oh, I would be so grateful," smiled Geraldine, her cheeks glowing crimson with joy.
"Then you will permit me to call on you and talk it over? Let me see—you will be at home this evening at seven o'clock, will you not? May I come for half an hour at that time?"
"If you please," she answered, eagerly, scribbling her address on the back of his card.
He took it with thanks, his keen, blue eyes gleaming with triumph at the success of his ruse, and then gave his attention to the gloves, which he paid for and directed to be sent to his hotel.
He lingered as long as he dared after the purchase, but another customer soon claimed Geraldine's attention, so he smiled and bowed himself away, leaving the young girl with a fluttering heart and blushing cheeks, the result of this chance, but fateful, meeting.
Geraldine and Cecilia were close friends, having come together from their country homes to seek employment among strangers in the great city. They roomed together in the third story of a cheap apartment-house, and Cissy, as her intimates called her, was like an older sister to the ambitious Geraldine.
Cissy was twenty-five, and her friend only eighteen, so she always assumed the role of adviser to her junior, and as they walked home from the store that evening, she said, reprovingly:
"My dear, I didn't like the young man who talked to you so glibly over the gloves this morning."
"Ah, Cissy, you don't know who that young man was, or you would be proud of his notice!" And Geraldine poured out a breathless account of her good fortune.
But, to her surprise, Cecilia answered, gravely: