He came over to the bedside and took a chair.

“Eris,” he said, “I really didn’t want Miss Blythe to see you. I thought you ought to go home when you recover.”

She looked at him, startled.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” he said, “but I think so, still.”

After a silence: “You are wrong.... But I know you mean it kindly.”

“Hang it all, of course I do. You’re an unusual girl——” Betsy’s words, she remembered—“and you interest me; and I like you.... And I know something about Broadway.... It worries me a little—the combination of you and Broadway.”

“I—worry you?”

“In a way.... Your inexperience.... And you don’t know men.”

“No, I don’t know men.”

“Well—there you are,” he said, impatiently.