“What do you think is the best treatment for urticaria?” she propounded with a highly professional manner.
It appeared to be a catch-question. The young man knotted his brows. Finally a gleam of light seemed to come to him.
“Urticaria frequently needs—er—thinning,” he announced decisively.
“Needs scratching you mean!” Miss Cornelia rose with a snort of disdain and faced him. “Young man, urticaria is hives, rubeola is measles, and alopecia is baldness!” she thundered. She waited a moment for his defense. None came.
“Why did you tell me you were a professional gardener?” she went on accusingly. “Why have you come here at this hour of night pretending to be something you’re not?”
By all standards of drama the young man should have wilted before her wrath, Instead he suddenly smiled at her, boyishly, and threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat.
“I know I shouldn’t have done it!” he confessed with appealing frankness. “You’d have found me out anyhow! I don’t know anything about gardening. The truth is,” his tone grew somber, “I was desperate! I had to have work!”
The candor of his smile would have disarmed a stonier-hearted person than Miss Cornelia. But her suspicions were still awake.
“‘That’s all, is it?”
“That’s enough when you’re down and out.” His words had an unmistakable accent of finality. She couldn’t help wanting to believe him, and yet, he wasn’t what he had pretended to be—and this night of all nights was no time to take people on trust!