"I like very well to see you eat, Mademoiselle Secretary. You do it with the tips of your fingers."
"Truly?" I cried. And suddenly my eyes brimmed with tears. I remembered Cossy Wakely and her peaches.
"What is it?" he asked quickly.
But I only said: "Oh, I was just thinking about the 'infinite improvability of the human race'!"
Then Lena was summoned home, and she begged me to go with her.
She had been for three months at Mrs. Bingy's, and a drawer of my bureau was filled with dainty clothes that, with Mrs. Bingy's help, she had made. We had contributed what we could, and all day long and for long evenings, she had sat contentedly at her work. But she kept putting off home-going, and one night she had told me the reason.
"Cossy," she said, "you remember how it is there to Luke's folks' house—everybody scolding and jawing. And I know I'll be just like 'em. And it kind of seems as if, if I could stay here, where it's still and decent and good-natured, it might make some difference—to it."
On the morning that the message came to her, Mrs. Carney had come into Mr. Ember's workroom. Mr. Ember was out. A small portrait exhibit was being made at one of the galleries and, having promised, he had gone off savagely to see it on the exhibit's last day. It was then that Mrs. Bingy telephoned, in spasms of excitement over the telegram. Luke's mother had fallen and hurt her hip. Lena must come home.
"And, Cossy!" Mrs. Bingy shouted, "Lena thought—Lena wondered—Lena wants you should go with her."
I understood. Lena dreaded to face that household after her absence, even though she was returning with her precious work.