“A good salary, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes——”
“And you are all fixed for it?”
“All but clothes—the old struggle. You helped me wonderfully before.”
“Perhaps I could help you again?”
“Oh, could you?” She was joyousness aflame—her whole nature winging about him.
Deep within, he was empty and bleak and cold. He wanted to give her money, but somehow could not make it easy for her. It cheapened him in his own eyes.... He was silent—his thoughts having crossed the world. There is no one to explain the sentence that ran through his mind, “... who buys wine for the Japanese girls in Dunedin, since Norcross was conscripted in the service we all shall know?”
“... But what am I to do for you,” he heard the girl inquire, “since you are—not going away to-night?”
He quaked at the old recall. Perhaps he had forgotten a little how to be sharp and city-wise; at least, he did not make himself clear at once.
“You have your mornings, don’t you, Bessie?”