"Yours?"
Christine was not over-intelligent, perhaps, but she was shrewd. That Le
Moyne's past held a secret she had felt from the beginning. She sat up
with eager curiosity.
"No, not mine. Is it a promise?"
"Of course."
"I've found Tillie, Christine. I want you to go out to see her."
Christine's red lips parted. The Street did not go out to see women in
Tillie's situation.
"But, K.!" she protested.
"She needs another woman just now. She's going to have a child, Christine;
and she has had no one to talk to but her hus--but Mr. Schwitter and
myself. She is depressed and not very well."
"But what shall I say to her? I'd really rather not go, K. Not," she
hastened to set herself right in his eyes--"not that I feel any
unwillingness to see her. I know you understand that. But--what in the
world shall I say to her?"
"Say what your own kind heart prompts."
It had been rather a long time since Christine had been accused of having a
kind heart. Not that she was unkind, but in all her self-centered young
life there had been little call on her sympathies. Her eyes clouded.
"I wish I were as good as you think I am."
There was a little silence between them. Then Le Moyne spoke briskly:-"I'll tell you how to get there; perhaps I would better write it."
He moved over to Christine's small writing-table and, seating himself,
proceeded to write out the directions for reaching Hillfoot.
Behind him, Christine had taken his place on the hearth-rug and stood
watching his head in the light of the desk-lamp. "What a strong, quiet
face it is," she thought. Why did she get the impression of such a
tremendous reserve power in this man who was a clerk, and a clerk only?
Behind him she made a quick, unconscious gesture of appeal, both hands out
for an instant. She dropped them guiltily as K. rose with the paper in his
hand.
"I've drawn a sort of map of the roads," he began. "You see, this--"
Christine was looking, not at the paper, but up at him.
"I wonder if you know, K.," she said, "what a lucky woman the woman will be
who marries you?"
He laughed good-humoredly.
"I wonder how long I could hypnotize her into thinking that."
He was still holding out the paper.
"I've had time to do a little thinking lately," she said, without
bitterness. "Palmer is away so much now. I've been looking back,
wondering if I ever thought that about him. I don't believe I ever did. I
wonder--"