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‘So you and Joe have fixed it up? Capital! Shall we all go and lunch somewhere?’

‘Got an appointment,’ said Joe. ‘I’m late already. Be here at two sharp, Mary.’ He took up his hat and went out.

The effect of Eddy’s suavity had been to make Mary forget the position in which she now stood to Joe. Eddy had created for the moment quite an old-time atmosphere of good fellowship. She hated Joe for shattering this and reminding her that she was his employee. Her quick flush was not lost on Eddy.

‘Dear old Joe is a little abrupt sometimes,’ he said. ‘But–‘

‘He’s a pig!’ said Mary, defiantly.

‘But you mustn’t mind it. New York makes men like that.’

‘It hasn’t made you–not to me, at any rate. Oh, Eddy,’ she cried, impulsively, ‘I’m frightened. I wish I had never come here. You’re the only thing in this whole city that isn’t hateful.’

‘Poor little girl!’ he said. ‘Never mind. Let me take you and give you some lunch. Come along.’

Eddy was soothing. There was no doubt of that. He stayed her with minced chicken and comforted her with soft shelled crab. His voice was a lullaby, lulling her Joe-harassed nerves to rest.

They discussed the dear old days. A carper might have said that Eddy was the least bit vague on the subject of the dear old days. A carper might have pointed out that the discussion of the dear old days, when you came to analyse it, was practically a monologue on Mary’s part, punctuated with musical ‘Yes, yes’s’ from her companion. But who cares what carpers think? Mary herself had no fault to find. In the roar of New York Dunsterville had suddenly become very dear to her, and she found in Eddy a sympathetic soul to whom she could open her heart.

‘Do you remember the old school, Eddy, and how you and I used to walk there together, you carrying my dinner-basket and helping me over the fences?’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘And we’d gather hickory-nuts and persimmons?’

‘Persimmons, yes,’ murmured Eddy.

‘Do you remember the prizes the teacher gave the one who got best marks in the spelling class? And the treats at Christmas, when we all got twelve sticks of striped peppermint candy? And drawing the water out of the well in that old wooden bucket in the winter, and pouring it out in the playground and skating on it when it froze? And wasn’t it cold in the winter, too! Do you remember the stove in the schoolroom? How we used to crowd round it!’

‘The stove, yes,’ said Eddy, dreamily. ‘Ah, yes, the stove. Yes, yes. Those were the dear old days!’ Mary leaned her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands, and looked across at him with sparkling eyes.

‘Oh, Eddy,’ she said, ‘you don’t know how nice it is to meet someone who remembers all about those old times! I felt a hundred million miles from Dunsterville before I saw you, and I was homesick. But now it’s all different.’

‘Poor little Mary!’

‘Do you remember–?’

He glanced at his watch with some haste.

‘It’s two o’clock,’ he said. ‘I think we should be going.’

Mary’s face fell.

‘Back to that pig, Joe! I hate him. And I’ll show him that I do!’

Eddy looked almost alarmed.

‘I–I shouldn’t do that,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I should do that. It’s only his manner at first. You’ll get to like him better. He’s an awfully good fellow really, Joe. And if you–er–quarrelled with him you might find it hard–what I mean is, it’s not so easy to pick up jobs in New York, I shouldn’t like to think of you, Mary,’ he added, tenderly, ‘hunting for a job–tired–perhaps hungry–‘

Mary’s eyes filled with tears.

‘How good you are, Eddy!’ she said. ‘And I’m horrid, grumbling when I ought to be thanking you for getting me the place. I’ll be nice to him–if I can–as nice as I can.’

‘That’s right. Do try. And we shall be seeing quite a lot of each other. We must often lunch together.’