"We didn't send out cards. We are such simple people that we don't expect—"
Miss Hitchcock blushed at the challenge, and interrupted to save the speech from its final ungraciousness.
"Of course, but we are different. We have always been so interested in Dr.
Sommers. He was such a promising man."
Alves made no effort to reply. She resented Miss Hitchcock's efforts to reach her, and withdrew into her shell. This young woman with her attendant brougham belonged to the world that she liked to feel Sommers had renounced for her sake. She disliked the world for that reason.
"Is he doing well?" Miss Hitchcock asked bluntly. "He was so brilliant in his studies and at the hospital! I was sorry that he left, that he felt he ought to start for himself. He had a good many theories and ideals. We didn't agree,"—she smiled winningly at the grave woman, "but I have had time to understand somewhat—only I couldn't, I can't believe that my father and his friends are all wrong." Miss Hitchcock rushed on heedlessly, to Alves's perplexity; she seemed desperately eager to establish some kind of possible understanding between them. But this cold, mature woman, in her plain dress, repelled her. She could not prevent herself from thinking thoughts that were unworthy of her.
Why had he done it! What had this woman to give that the women of her set could not equal and more than equal? The atmosphere of her brougham, of her costly gown and pretty hat contrasted harshly with the dingy temple and dead weeds of the waste land. Dr. Lindsay had said much, and insinuated more, about the entanglement that had ruined the promising young surgeon. Was it this woman's sensual power—she rejected the idea on the instant. Dr. Sommers was not that kind, in spite of anything that Lindsay might say. She could not understand it—his devotion to this woman, his giving up his chances. It was all a part of some scheme beyond her power to grasp fully.
"I want to know you," she said at last, after an awkward silence. "Won't you let me?"
Alves leaned slightly forward, and spoke slowly.
"You are very kind, but I don't see any good in it. We don't belong to your world, and you would show him all the time what he has to get along without. Not that he wouldn't do it again," she added proudly, noticing the girl's lowered gaze. "I don't think that he would like to have me say that he had given up anything. But he's got his way to make, here, and it is harder work than you imagine."
"I don't see, then, why you refuse to let me—his old friends—help him." Miss Hitchcock spoke impatiently. She was beginning to feel angry with this impassive woman, who was probably ignorant of the havoc she had done.