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“But why–are you–here?” she asked in a cold little voice.

The man’s eyes did not swerve.

“Jimmy asked me to come.”

“He asked you to come!”

“Sure I did,” interposed Jimmy, with all the anxiety of a host who sees
his guest, for some unknown reason, being made uncomfortable. “I
knowed youse would n’t mind if we did ask comp’ny ter help eat de
dinner, an’ he lost his boat, ye see, an’ had a mug on him as long as
me arm, he was that cut up ’bout it. He was sellin’ poipers down t’ de
dock.”

“Selling papers!”

“As it happened, I did not sell them,” interposed the man, still with
that steady meeting of her eyes. “Jimmy sold them for me. He will
tell you that I was n’t on to my job, so he helped me out.”

“Aw, furgit it,” grinned Jimmy sheepishly. “Dat wa’n’t nuttin’. I
only showed him ye could n’t sell no poipers widout hollerin’.”

A curious look of admiration and relief came to the face of the Girl.
Her eyes softened. “You mean–“

She stopped, and the man nodded his head gravely.

“Yes, miss. I was alone, waiting for Thompson. He must have got
delayed. I had four papers in my lap, and after Jimmy had sold them
and the boat had gone, he very kindly asked me to dinner, and–I came.”

“Whew! Look at dis!” cried an excited voice. Jimmy was investigating
the contents of the basket. “Say, Mike, we got turkey! Ye see,” he
explained, turning to Miss Carrolton, “he kinder hung back fur a while,
an’ wa’n’t fast on comin’. An’ I did hope ‘t would be turkey–fur
comp’ny. Folks don’t have comp’ny ev’ry day!”

“No, folks don’t have company every day,” repeated the Girl softly; and
into the longing eyes opposite she threw, before she went away, one
look such as only the dearest girl in the world can give–a look full
of tenderness and love and understanding.

Long hours later, in quite a different place, the Girl saw the man
again. He was not Mike now. He was the Millionaire. For a time he
talked eagerly of his curious visit, chatting excitedly of all the
delightful results that were to come from it; rest and ease for the
woman; a wheel chair and the best of surgeons for the little girl;
school and college for the boy. Then, after a long minute of silence,
he said something else. He said it diffidently, and with a rush of
bright color to his face–he was not used to treading quite so near to
his heart.

“I never thought,” he said, just touching the crutches at his side,
“that I ‘d ever be thankful for–for these. But I was–almost–to-day.
You see, it was they that–that brought me–my dinner,” he finished,
with a whimsicality that did not hide the shake in his voice.