CHAPTER I
Many patterns of carpet lay rolled out before them on the floor—two
of Brussels showed the beginning of their quest, and its ending in that
direction; while a score of ingrains lured their eyes and prolonged
the debate between desire pocket-book. The head of the department
did them the honor of waiting upon them himself—or did Joe the
honor, as she well knew, for she had noted the open-mouthed awe of the
elevator boy who brought them up. Nor had she been blind to the
marked respect shown Joe by the urchins and groups of young fellows
on corners, when she walked with him in their own neighborhood down
at the west end of the town.
But the head of the department was called away to the telephone,
and in her mind the splendid promise of the carpets and the irk of the
pocket-book were thrust aside by a greater doubt and anxiety.
“But I don’t see what you find to like in it, Joe,”
she said softly, the note of insistence in her words betraying recent
and unsatisfactory discussion.
For a fleeting moment a shadow darkened his boyish face, to be replaced
by the glow of tenderness. He was only a boy, as she was only
a girl—two young things on the threshold of life, house-renting
and buying carpets together.
“What’s the good of worrying?” he questioned.
“It’s the last go, the very last.”
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