"Have you learned to sail a boat?"
"No. I'll tell you what I'll do, Athalie, I'll come down this summer—"
"But I don't live there any more."
"That's so. Where do you live?"
She hesitated, and his eyes fell for the first time from her youthful and engaging face to the clothes she wore—black clothes that seemed cheap even to a boy who had no knowledge of feminine clothing. She was all in rusty black, hat, gloves, jacket and skirt; and the austere and slightly mean setting made the contrast of her hair and skin the more fresh and vivid.
"I live," she replied diffidently, "with my two sisters in West Fifty-fourth Street. I am stenographer and typewriter in the offices of a department store."
"I'd like to come to see you," he said impulsively. "Shall I—when vacation begins?"
"Are you still at school?"
He laughed: "I'm at Harvard. I'm down for Easter just now. Tell me, Athalie, would you care to have me come to see you when I return?"
"If you would care to come."