He dropped her hands and looked at her in mock severity.
“Much interested! Is he in love with you?”
“Mercy, no!”
“I don't believe it. I'm jealous. You know, I've always been more than half in love with you myself!”
Play for him—the same victorious instinct that had made him touch Miss Harrison's fingers as she gave him the instrument. And Sidney knew how it was meant; she smiled into his eyes and drew down her veil briskly.
“Then we'll say at three,” she said calmly, and took an orderly and unflurried departure.
But the little seed of tenderness had taken root. Sidney, passing in the last week or two from girlhood to womanhood,—outgrowing Joe, had she only known it, as she had outgrown the Street,—had come that day into her first contact with a man of the world. True, there was K. Le Moyne. But K. was now of the Street, of that small world of one dimension that she was leaving behind her.
She sent him a note at noon, with word to Tillie at Mrs. McKee's to put it under his plate:—
DEAR MR. LE MOYNE,—I am so excited I can hardly write. Dr. Wilson, the surgeon, is going to take me through the hospital this afternoon. Wish me luck. SIDNEY PAGE.
K. read it, and, perhaps because the day was hot and his butter soft and the other “mealers” irritable with the heat, he ate little or no luncheon. Before he went out into the sun, he read the note again. To his jealous eyes came a vision of that excursion to the hospital. Sidney, all vibrant eagerness, luminous of eye, quick of bosom; and Wilson, sardonically smiling, amused and interested in spite of himself. He drew a long breath, and thrust the note in his pocket.
The little house across the way sat square in the sun. The shades of his windows had been lowered against the heat. K. Le Moyne made an impulsive movement toward it and checked himself.
As he went down the Street, Wilson's car came around the corner. Le Moyne moved quietly into the shadow of the church and watched the car go by.
Chapter V
Sidney and K. Le Moyne sat under a tree and talked. In Sidney's lap lay a small pasteboard box, punched with many holes. It was the day of releasing Reginald, but she had not yet been able to bring herself to the point of separation. Now and then a furry nose protruded from one of the apertures and sniffed the welcome scent of pine and buttonball, red and white clover, the thousand spicy odors of field and woodland.
“And so,” said K. Le Moyne, “you liked it all? It didn't startle you?”
“Well, in one way, of course—you see, I didn't know it was quite like that: all order and peace and quiet, and white beds and whispers, on top,—you know what I mean,—and the misery there just the same. Have you ever gone through a hospital?”
K. Le Moyne was stretched out on the grass, his arms under his head. For this excursion to the end of the street-car line he had donned a pair of white flannel trousers and a belted Norfolk coat. Sidney had been divided between pride in his appearance and fear that the Street would deem him overdressed.
At her question he closed his eyes, shutting out the peaceful arch and the bit of blue heaven overhead. He did not reply at once.
“Good gracious, I believe he's asleep!” said Sidney to the pasteboard box.
But he opened his eyes and smiled at her.
“I've been around hospitals a little. I suppose now there is no question about your going?”
“The superintendent said I was young, but that any protegee of Dr. Wilson's would certainly be given a chance.”
“It is hard work, night and day.”
“Do you think I am afraid of work?”
“And—Joe?”
Sidney colored vigorously and sat erect.
“He is very silly. He's taken all sorts of idiotic notions in his head.”
“Such as—”
“Well, he HATES the hospital, of course. As if, even if I meant to marry him, it wouldn't be years before he can be ready.”
“Do you think you are quite fair to Joe?”
“I haven't promised to marry him.”
“But he thinks you mean to. If you have quite made up your mind not to, better tell him, don't you think? What—what are these idiotic notions?”
Sidney considered, poking a slim finger into the little holes in the box.
“You can see how stupid he is, and—and young. For one thing, he's jealous of you!”
“I see. Of course that is silly, although your attitude toward his suspicion is hardly flattering to me.”
He smiled up at her.
“I told him that I had asked you to bring me here to-day. He was furious. And that wasn't all.”
“No?”
“He said I was flirting desperately with Dr. Wilson. You see, the day we went through the hospital, it was hot, and we went to Henderson's for soda-water. And, of course, Joe was there. It was really dramatic.”
K. Le Moyne was daily gaining the ability to see things from the angle of the Street. A month ago he could have seen no situation in two people, a man and a girl, drinking soda-water together, even with a boy lover on the next stool. Now he could view things through Joe's tragic eyes. And there as more than that. All day he had noticed how inevitably the conversation turned to the young surgeon. Did they start with Reginald, with the condition of the morning-glory vines, with the proposition of taking up the quaint paving-stones and macadamizing the Street, they ended with the younger Wilson.
Sidney's active young brain, turned inward for the first time in her life, was still on herself.
“Mother is plaintively resigned—and Aunt Harriet has been a trump. She's going to keep her room. It's really up to you.”
“To me?”
“To your staying on. Mother trusts you absolutely. I hope you noticed that you got one of the apostle spoons with the custard she sent up to you the other night. And she didn't object to this trip to-day. Of course, as she said herself, it isn't as if you were young, or at all wild.”
In spite of himself, K. was rather startled. He felt old enough, God knew, but he had always thought of it as an age of the spirit. How old did this child think he was?
“I have promised to stay on, in the capacity of watch-dog, burglar-alarm, and occasional recipient of an apostle spoon in a dish of custard. Lightning-conductor, too—your mother says she isn't afraid of storms if there is a man in the house. I'll stay, of course.”
The thought of his age weighed on him. He rose to his feet and threw back his fine shoulders.
“Aunt Harriet and your mother and Christine and her husband-to-be, whatever his name is—we'll be a happy family. But, I warn you, if I ever hear of Christine's husband getting an apostle spoon—”
She smiled up at him. “You are looking very grand to-day. But you have grass stains on your white trousers. Perhaps Katie can take them out.”
Quite suddenly K. felt that she thought him too old for such frivolity of dress. It put him on his mettle.
“How old do you think I am, Miss Sidney?”
She considered, giving him, after her kindly way, the benefit of the doubt.
“Not