Its
mark of shame--burning and stinging again as she sat beside this
young man!
"You're sad about something?" suggested he, himself nearly as
embarrassed as she.
"My friend's ill. He's got typhoid."
"That is bad. But he'll get all right. They always cure typhoid,
nowadays--if it's taken in time and the nursing's good.
Everything depends on the nursing. I had it a couple of years
ago, and pulled through easily."
Susan brightened. He spoke so confidently that the appeal to her
young credulity toward good news and the hopeful, cheerful thing
was irresistible. "Oh, yes--he'll be over it soon," the young
man went on, "especially if he's in a hospital where they've got
the facilities for taking care of sick people. Where is he?"
"In the hospital--up that way." She moved her head vaguely in
the direction of the northwest.
"Oh, yes. It's a good one--for the pay patients. I suppose for
the poor devils that can't pay"--he glanced with careless
sympathy at the dozen or so tramps on benches nearby--"it's like
all the rest of 'em--like the whole world, for that matter. It
must be awful not to have money enough to get on with, I mean.
I'm talking about men." He smiled cheerfully. "With a woman--if
she's pretty--it's different, of course."
The girl was so agitated that she did not notice the sly, if
shy, hint in the remark and its accompanying glance.
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