Here she was being affable again.
“I presume you were going to lunch, Mr. Markand?”
He noticed that she kept step with him. She was a big and capable woman.
“Y—yes,” he admitted.
“Do you like your work? Perhaps you are tired at night. Am I right? Oh, never worry about that. When you get used—more used to it, it will take less out of you.”
They had passed his eating place. What should he do? He began cursing himself. It was so wide in him that he did not want to invite her to lunch. In her, that this was precisely what she expected. He was a reed before her silent pressure. There she was talking, as if they had an hour to be together.
“We were up on the Palisades last Sunday. You must really have some of your friends take you——” David fumbled in his pocket. His fare downtown that morning had broken his last dollar. He had a way of not keeping much of his money with him. It seemed a risky thing to do in a wild City. His pocket held ninety-five cents! Lunch for two at a decent restaurant was a catastrophe that simply could not be! She was trudging along: subtly pushing him toward Broadway. The lunch-places of the rich were near.
“Doubtless you have a lunch engagement ...?”
“No. But....” He stopped, she stopped. He blushed and she smiled.