Part 15

"You are Miss Gordon, aren't you?"

"Yes--I'm Selma Gordon."

"My name is Jane Hastings." Then as this seemed to convey nothing to Selma, Jane added: "I'm not like you. I haven't an individuality of my own--that anybody knows about. So, I'll have to identify myself by saying that I'm Martin Hastings' daughter."

Jane confidently expected that this announcement would cause some sort of emotion--perhaps of awe, perhaps of horror, certainly of interest. She was disappointed. If Selma felt anything she did not show it--and Jane was of the opinion that it would be well nigh impossible for so direct and natural a person to conceal. Jane went on:

"I read in your paper about your fund for sick children. I was riding past your office--saw the sign--and I've come in to give what I happen to have about me." She drew out the small roll of bills and handed it to Selma.

The Russian girl--if it is fair thus to characterize one so intensely American in manner, in accent and in speech--took the money and said:

"We'll acknowledge it in the paper next week."

Jane flushed and a thrill of alarm ran through her. "Oh--please--no," she urged. "I'd not like to have my name mentioned. That would look as if I had done it to seem charitable. Besides, it's such a trifle."

Selma was calm and apparently unsuspicious. "Very well," said she. "We'll write, telling what we did with the money, so that you can investigate."

"But I trust you entirely," cried Jane.

Selma shook her head. "But we don't wish to be trusted," said she. "Only dishonest people wish to be trusted when it's possible to avoid trusting. And we all need watching. It helps us to keep straight."

"Oh, I don't agree with you," protested Miss Hastings. "Lots of the time I'd hate to be watched. I don't want everybody to know all I do."

Selma's eyes opened. "Why not?" she said.

Jane cast about for a way to explain what seemed to her a self-evident truth. "I mean--privacy," she said. "For instance, if you were in love, you'd not want everybody to know about it?"

"Yes, indeed," declared Selma. "I'd be tremendously proud of it. It must be wonderful to be in love."

In one of those curious twists of feminine nature, Miss Hastings suddenly felt the glow of a strong, unreserved liking for this strange, candid girl.

Selma went on: "But I'm afraid I never shall be. I get no time to think about myself. From rising till bed time my work pushes at me." She glanced uneasily at her desk, apologetically at Miss Hastings. "I ought to be writing this minute. The strike is occupying Victor, and I'm helping out with his work."

"I'm interrupting," said Jane. "I'll go." She put out her hand with her best, her sweetest smile. "We're going to be friends--aren't we?"

Selma clasped her hand heartily and said: "We ARE friends. I like everybody. There's always something to like in everyone--and the bad part isn't their fault. But it isn't often that I like anyone so much as I do you. You are so direct and honest--quite different from the other women of your class that I've met."

Jane felt unaccountably grateful and humble. "I'm afraid you're too generous. I guess you're not a very good judge of people," she said.

"So Victor--Victor Dorn--says," laughed Selma. "He says I'm too confiding. Well--why not? And really, he trusts everybody, too--except with the cause. Then he's--he's"--she glanced from face to face of the four pictures--"he's like those men."

Jane's glance followed Selma's. She said: "Yes--I should imagine so--from what I've heard." She startled, flushed, hid behind a somewhat constrained manner. "Will you come up to my house to lunch?"

"If I can find time," said Selma. "But I'd rather come and take you for a walk. I have to walk two hours every day. It's the only thing that'll keep my head clear."

"When will you come?--to-morrow?"

"Is nine o'clock too early?"

Jane reflected that her father left for business at half-past eight. "Nine to-morrow," she said. "Good-by again."

As she was mounting her horse, she saw "the Cossack girl," as she was calling her, writing away at the window hardly three feet above the level of Jane's head when she was mounted, so low was the first story of the battered old frame house. But Selma did not see her; she was all intent upon the writing. "She's forgotten me already," thought Jane with a pang of jealous vanity. She added: "But SHE has SOMETHING to think about--she and Victor Dorn."

She was so preoccupied that she rode away with only an absent thank you for the small boy, in an older and much larger and wider brother's cast-off shirt, suspenders and trousers. At the corner of the avenue she remembered and turned her horse. There stood the boy gazing after her with a hypnotic intensity that made her smile. She rode back fumbling in her pockets. "I beg your pardon," said she to the boy. Then she called up to Selma Gordon: