"Go away!" repeated the young man, irritably. "Don't bother me. I haven't had anything to eat for three days!"
His face went down into his arms again. Mary Elizabeth stood staring at the brown, curling hair. She stood perfectly still for some moments. She evidently was greatly puzzled. She walked away a little distance, then stopped and thought it over.
And now paper after paper and pipe after cigar went down. Every gentleman in the room began to look on. The young man with the beautiful brown curls, and dissipated, disgraced, and hidden face was not stiller than the rest.
The little figure in the pink calico and the red shawl and big rubbers stood for a moment silent among them all. The waiter came to take her out but the gentlemen motioned him away.
Mary Elizabeth turned her five-cent piece over and over in her purple hand. Her hand shook. The tears came. The smell of the dinner from the dining-room grew savoury and strong. The child put the piece of money to her lips as if she could have eaten it, then turned and, without further hesitation, went back.
She touched the young man—on the bright hair this time—with her trembling little hand.
The room was so still now that what she said rang out to the corridor, where the waiters stood, with the clerk behind looking over the desk to see.
"I'm sorry you are so hungry. If you haven't had anything for three days, you must be hungrier than me. I've got five cents. A gentleman gave it me. I wish you would take it. I've only gone one day. You can get some supper with it, and—maybe—I—can get some somewheres! I wish you'd please to take it!"
Mary Elizabeth stood quite still, holding out her five-cent piece. She did not understand the stir that went all over the bright room. She did not see that some of the gentlemen coughed and wiped their spectacles.
She did not know why the brown curls before her came up with such a start, nor why the young man's wasted face flushed red and hot with a noble shame.