“No, no!” she exclaimed, woefully, compressing her lips to keep back the tears evoked by his apparition. “This is a moment snatched from business hours. I must be off. I am not cold; it is nervousness, I suppose. Oh, think when and how I saw you last, and you will not wonder! And I have lately had much care. Please forgive me, Mr. Oliver; I shall be all right soon.”
Many and varied had been the experiences of other people’s griefs falling to Alice’s lot in her professional career. For so long she had been in the habit of putting a lock upon her own feelings, while absorbing those of her studies for the press, she could hardly believe she was giving way to emotion on her own account.
She had spent the previous evening on duty in the Tombs prison, gathering for publication the last utterances of a wretched woman about to be consigned for her crimes to life imprisonment. From here she was going on to the tenement-house district to write up the case of a starving family for whom a newspaper fund was to be created. Later that day she was due at a crush reception, where there were dresses to describe. Everywhere and every day of her busy, lonely life, she was the human atom last to be considered.
“I suppose you think I am rather a lunatic,” she went on, with an attempt at sprightliness, seeing the deep concern in Oliver’s face. “But you must not mind my giving way to this weakness. It is a relief to think that anybody cares. Now I shall go, please—not to keep you and Mr. Farnsworth longer.”
Farnsworth, a sheaf of typed sheets in his hand, came forward to join them upon the hearth-rug.
“This is the most diabolically ingenious effort of imagination I ever saw!” he exclaimed, impulsively. “What would be a fair punishment for such a tissue of insinuations that can be read in two ways, yet would succeed effectually in damning the person they are aimed at, I cannot think.”
The young journalist crimsoned to the roots of her hair.
“I have not read it,” she said, in a faltering tone. “I only—became aware—that it was in existence—and I was anxious to save it getting into print.”
“You have placed us under an obligation no money could discharge,” went on Farnsworth, kindly; “but—er—it would give me genuine pleasure to express our gratitude in some substantial way.”
“No, no; do not speak of it!” she cried. “Your wife will tell you, Mr. Farnsworth, if this gentleman does not, what a debt I am trying to repay.”