For answer she held the door wide open.
"I have been dining with Mrs. Phillips; she has asked me to draw some plans for her," Jackson explained. "As I came by the house, I thought I would tell you and your mother about it."
"Mother has gone upstairs, but come in. You know I always read late. And I am so glad to hear about the plans."
The strong night wind brushed boisterously through the open door, ruffling the girl's loosely coiled hair. She put her hands to her head to tighten the hairpins here and there. If the man could have read colors in the dark hall, he would have seen that Helen's face, usually too pale, had flushed. His ears were quick enough to detect the tremulous note in her voice, the touch of surprise and sudden feeling. It answered something electric in himself, something that had driven him to her across the city straightway from Mrs. Phillips's house!
He followed her into the circle of lamplight, and sat down heavily in the chair that she had been occupying.
"What's this thing you are reading?" he asked in his usual tone of authority, picking up the bulky volume beneath the lamp. "Hobson's 'Social Problem.' Where did you get hold of that? It's pretty heavy reading, isn't it?"
His tolerantly amused tone indicated the value he put on women's efforts to struggle with abstract ideas.
"Professor Sturges recommended it in his last lecture. It isn't hard—only it makes me feel so ignorant!"
"Um," he commented, turning over the leaves critically.
"But tell me about Mrs. Phillips and the house."