But I knew an apology was due Dicky, and I gathered courage to make it.

“I am sorry to have annoyed you, Dicky,” I said at last.  “But I did not dream that you were looking at her as a possible model.”

“And looked at from any other standpoint it was rather raw of me,” admitted Dicky.  “But let’s forget it.  She’ll probably drop off the train at Forest Hills or Kew Gardens, she looks like the product of those suburbs, and I’ll never see her again.”

But his prediction was not fulfilled.

“Marvin!”

The conductor shouted the word as the train drew up to one of the most forlorn looking railroad stations it was ever my lot to see.

Dicky and I rose from our seats, he with subdued excitement, I with a feeling of depression.  For the girl who had claimed so much of our attention was getting off at Marvin after all.

I remembered the bargain I had made with my conscience.

“What do you know about that?” Dicky exclaimed, as he saw her go down the aisle ahead of us.  “She also is getting off here.  I wonder who she is?”

“Listen, Dicky,” I said rapidly.  “Walk ahead, see in which direction she goes, and ask the station master if he knows who she is.  I know something which I will tell you when you have done that.  Perhaps you may have her for a model, after all.”

Dicky gave me one swift glance of mingled surprise and admiration, then did as I asked.  As I followed him down the aisle and noted the eagerness with which he was hurrying, I felt a sudden qualm of doubt.  Was I really doing the wisest thing?

I waited quietly on the station platform until Dicky rejoined me.

“Her name’s Draper,” he said.  “The station agent doesn’t know much about her, except that she visits a sister, Mrs. Gorman, here every summer.  He never saw her here in the winter before.  I got Mrs. Gorman’s address, 329 Shore Road, called Shore Road because it never gets anywhere near the shore.  Much good the address will do me, though.  Queer she doesn’t take the bus.  It must be a mile to her sister’s home.  She’s probably one of those walking bugs.”

“She didn’t take the bus because she could not afford it,” I said quietly.

Dicky stared at me in amazement.

“How do you know?” he said finally.  “Do you know her?  No, of course you don’t.  But how in creation—­”

“Listen, Dicky,” I interrupted.  “I’ve turned too many dresses of my own not to recognize makeshifts when I see them.  Everything that girl has on except her stockings and gloves has been remodelled from her old stuff.  Her pumps are not suitable at all for walking; they are evening pumps, of a style two years old at that.  But she has covered them with spats, so that no one will suspect that she wears them from necessity, not choice.”

“Well, I’ll be—­” Dicky uttered his favorite expletive.  “It takes one woman to dissect another.  She looked like the readiest kind of ready money to me.  Why, say, if what you say is true, she ought to be glad to earn the money I could pay her for posing.  I could get her lots of other work, too.”