“Because the people of Our Square don't need to be told of the tragedy of life. Joy and play and laughter is what they need. So I give it to them.”
A light came into his tired, old-young eyes. “Do you know, I begin to think you're a very wonderful person.”
“Time to work again,” said she. Whereby, being an understanding young man, he perceived that there would be no safe divergence from the strict relations of employer and employed, for the present at least. Half a dozen times he sat for her, sometimes collecting a dollar, sometimes only fifty cents, the money being invariably handed over with a demure and determined air of business procedure, and duly entered in a tiny book, which was a never-failing source of suppressed amusement to him. Then one day the basis abruptly changed, for a reason he did not learn about until long after.
It had to do with a process which I must regretfully term eavesdropping, on the part of the little sculptor. The subjects were two-on-a-bench, in Our Square. One was Cyrus the Gaunt; the other an inconsiderable and hopeless lounger, grim and wan.
Silver passed between them, and something else, less tangible, something which lighted a sudden flame of hope in the hopeless face.
“A real job?” the lurking sculptor overheard him say, hoarsely.
Cyrus nodded. “Nine o'clock to-morrow morning, here,” said he.
Slipping quietly away, the girl almost ran into the grim and wan lounger, no longer so grim and several degrees less wan, as he rounded the opposite curve of the circle and passed out on the street in front of her. The next instant Cyrus shot by her at a long-legged gallop and caught the man by the shoulder.
“Here! Wait! Not nine o'clock,” he cried breathlessly. “I forgot. I've got an engagement, a—very important business engagement.”
The other's jaw dropped. “What the—” he began, when there appeared before them both a trim and twinkling vision of femininity.