The Wall Street Girl. Bartlett Frederick Orin

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was, on the whole, a very becoming hat and a very becoming coat, though they would not have suited at all the critical taste of Frances Stuyvesant. But they had not been designed for that purpose.

      Miss Winthrop paused to readjust a pin and the angle of her hat. Then she took a swift glance about the office.

      “I guess the boys must have gone,” she said to Don. “This is the lunch hour.”

      Don rose.

      “Thank you for letting me know,” he replied cordially.

      “Most of them get back at one,” she informed him.

      “Then you think I may go out until then?”

      “I don’t see why not. But I’d be back at one sharp if I were you.”

      “Thanks, I will.”

      Don gave her an opportunity to go out the door and disappear before he himself followed. He had a notion that she could have told him, had he asked, where in this neighborhood it was possible to get the most food for the least money. He had a notion, also, that such a question would not have shocked her. It was difficult to say by just what process he reached this conclusion, but he felt quite sure of it.

      Don was now firmly determined to invest a portion of his thirteen cents in something to eat. It had no longer become a matter of volition, but an acute necessity. For twenty minutes he wandered about rather aimlessly; then, in a sort of alley, he found a dairy lunch where in plain figures coffee was offered at five cents a cup, and egg sandwiches at the same price. The place was well filled, but he was fortunate in slipping into a chair against the wall just as a man was slipping out. It was a chair where one broad arm served as a table. Next to him sat a young woman in a black hat, munching a chocolate éclair. She looked up as he sat down, and frowned. Don rose at once.

      “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you were here. Honest I didn’t.”

      “Well, it’s a public lunch, isn’t it?” she inquired. “I’m almost through.”

      “Then you don’t mind if I stay?”

      “It’s no business of mine,” she said curtly.

      “But I don’t want you to think I–I’m intruding.”

      She glanced at him again.

      “Let’s forget it,” she decided. “But you might sit there all day and you wouldn’t get anything to eat.”

      He looked around, uncertain as to just what she meant.

      “You go to the counter, pick out what you want, and bring it back here,” she explained. “I’ll hold your seat for you.”

      Don made his way into the crowd at the rear. At the counter he found he had for ten cents a wide choice; but her éclair had looked so good he selected one of those and a cup of coffee. In returning he lost a portion of the coffee, but he brought the éclair through safely. He deposited it on the arm of the chair and sat down. In spite of his utmost effort at self-control, that éclair made just four mouthfuls. It seemed to him that he had no more than picked up his fork than it was gone. However, he still had his coffee, and he settled back to enjoy that in a more temperate fashion.

      Without apparently taking the slightest interest in him, Miss Winthrop observed the rapidity with which he concluded his lunch. She knew something about being hungry, and if she was any judge that tidbit produced no more impression upon this six-foot man than a peanut on an elephant.

      “That all you’re going to eat?” she demanded.

      Don was startled. The question was both unexpected and pointed. He met her eyes–brown eyes and very direct. The conventional explanation that he had ready about not caring for much in the middle of the day seemed scarcely worth while.

      “Yes,” he answered.

      “Broke?” she inquired.

      He nodded.

      “Then you ought to have had an egg sandwich instead of one of those things,” she informed him.

      “But the one you had looked so good,” he smiled.

      “I had an egg sandwich to start with; this was dessert.”

      “I didn’t know,” he apologized.

      “You ought to get one now. You won’t last until night on just that.”

      “How much are they?” he inquired.

      “A nickel.”

      “Then I guess I won’t have one.”

      “Haven’t you five cents?” she cross-examined.

      “Only three cents,” he answered.

      “And you begin work to-day?”

      “Yes.”

      “It’s only Tuesday, and you won’t get paid until Saturday.”

      “So?”

      “Do you expect to make that éclair go until then?”

      “I hadn’t thought much about it,” he answered uneasily.

      “You don’t look as if you would,” she said. “You are new to this, aren’t you?”

      “Yes.”

      He did not resent her questioning; and it did not occur to him to give her an evasive reply.

      “Just out of college?”

      “Last fall.”

      “What you been doing since then?”

      “Why, nothing,” he admitted. “You see, my father died only last month, and–”

      “Oh, I see,” she said more gently. “That’s hard luck.”

      “It makes a good deal of a difference,” he said.

      “I know.”

      It had made a difference in her life when her father died.

      She turned to her éclair; but, as she was raising the fork to her lips, she caught his eyes and put it down again.

      “Look here,” she said; “you must eat something. You can’t get along without food. I’ve tried it.”

      “You!” he exclaimed.

      “Indeed, yes.”

      “Dieting?”

      “Hardly,” she replied grimly.

      He had heard of men going perforce without food, but he did not remember ever having heard of a woman in that predicament. Certainly he had never before met one.

      “You mean that you’ve gone broke, too?”

      “Why, certainly,” she answered. “The firm I was with first went broke, and it was СКАЧАТЬ