"Do you know any working girls?" she repeated. "White girls, I mean, of course. I was wondering—I thought that if so—perhaps you might know what kind of work they do. The kind of work that might be done by a young gentlewoman of good breeding."
It was quaintly charming to hear the last thing that Miss Judy would have thought of, or dreamed of saying, so staidly uttered, in that little lady's own prim manner and in that little lady's own old-fashioned words. Lynn could not help smiling, although there was no doubting Doris's earnestness, and notwithstanding that there was something in her look and tone which touched him.
"I'll have to think," he said, half in jest and half in earnest. "No, on the spur of the moment, I am almost sure that I don't know any working girl who might be described in just those terms. There are doubtless many working girls who are ladies, but they would scarcely be likely to call themselves by such an antiquated name. They wouldn't even know themselves by so antiquated a description."
She did not smile; silently, gravely, she turned her dark eyes on his face; her own face was lovelier than ever in its wistfulness, and her dark eyes softer than ever in their unconscious appeal.
"But I am in earnest," she persisted. "Have you ever known any—any girl—like me—who worked?"
His eyes were grave too, now, and they were looking straight down into hers. "I have known very few girls of any kind," he said gently. "And I have never known one—in the least like you."
A rosy light, bright as the reflection of the sunset's glow, flashed over her face and beamed from her eyes. She did not know why she suddenly felt so happy. She bent down in sweet confusion and gathered a handful of the long, green grass, and began braiding the emerald blades with trembling fingers. Lynn watched her hands in the false security of his own strength, heedless of the spell which they were innocently weaving. He followed every movement of the little white fingers, so delicately tapering and so exquisitely tipped with rose and pearl; and he saw—as he saw all beauty—the rosy velvet of the soft little palms, and then his greedy gaze roved further and fed upon the perfection of the small feet which neither the poor little slippers nor the long grass could hide. The intensity of his gaze unconsciously brought a sort of nervous flutter into the little hands; the girl felt it, although she was not thinking of it, and her hands dropped suddenly on her lap. Her gaze, uplifted, met his again, helplessly entreating, almost with the look of a frightened child groping its way through the dark.
"But there must be girls who work. I must find out what they do. I must learn how to do it too—whatever it is. Won't you help me?"
Her lips were quivering and her eyes were full of tears.
"My dear child! Dear, dear Doris! How can I help you? You to enter the arena to struggle with brutal gladiators for the spoils which belong to the strongest and the fiercest? Help you to do this—you soft, lovely, tender little thing!"