"No.... No, I think not.... Look here, Lou, I've said no twice."
There was a rather lengthy silence while she listened. Then: "You might as well have it straight, Lou. I'm through.... No, I'm not sick. I'm just through.... I wouldn't.... What's the use?"
Willy Cameron, retreating into his lair, was unhappily conscious that the girl was on the verge of tears. He puzzled over the situation for some time. His immediate instinct was to help any troubled creature, and it had dawned on him that this composed young lady who manicured her nails out of a pasteboard box during the slack portion of every day was troubled. In his abstraction he commenced again his melancholy refrain, and a moment later she appeared in the doorway: "Oh, for mercy's sake, stop," she said. She was very pale.
"Look here, Miss Edith, you come in here and tell me what's wrong. Here's a chair. Now sit down and talk it out. It helps a lot to get things off your chest."
"There's nothing the matter with me. And if the boss comes in here and finds me--"
Quite suddenly she put her head down on the back of the chair and began to cry. He was frightfully distressed. He poured some aromatic ammonia into a medicine glass and picking up her limp hand, closed her fingers around it.
"Drink that," he ordered.
She shook her head.
"I'm not sick," she said. "I'm only a fool."
"If that fellow said anything over the telephone--!"
She looked up drearily.
"It wasn't him. He doesn't matter. It's just--I got to hating myself." She stood up and carefully dabbed her eyes. "Heavens, I must be a sight. Now don't you get to thinking things, Mr. Cameron. Girls can't go out and fight off a temper, or get full and sleep it off. So they cry."
Some time later he glanced out at her. She was standing before the little mirror above the chewing gum, carefully rubbing her cheeks with a small red pad. After that she reached into the show case, got out a lip pencil and touched her lips.
"You're pretty enough without all that, Miss Edith."
"You mind your own business," she retorted acidly.