I hated myself for looking across the street, but as I hurried on my eyes were following Selwyn and the girl, and when I saw the latter stop and bury her face in her hands, saw Selwyn say something to her, saw him turn in one direction and she in another, I, too, stopped; for a moment was unable to move.

We had reached the corner as Selwyn left the opposite one and came toward us.  Head down, as if deeply thinking, he did not look up until close to us.  Under the gaslight I waited, not knowing why, and Bettina being behind me, he thought I was alone when presently he saw me.

“Dandridge!” He stared as if stupefied with amazement.  Lifting his hat mechanically, he came closer.  “What in the name of Heaven are you doing here alone this time of night?  Are you losing your mind?”

His entire absence of embarrassment, his usual disapproval of my behavior, his impatient anger, had an unlooked-for effect, and sudden relief and hot joy so surged over me that I laughed, a queer, nervous, choking little laugh.

“I am not alone.  It is not yet six, and I have been to see a boy who is what you are not—­the head of a house.  I mean a house with a family in it.  Have you, too, been visiting?”

His face flushed, and frowningly he turned away.  “I had business down here.  I had to come to it as it could not be brought to me.  Where are you going?”

“Home.”

Bettina, who in some unaccountable way had managed to stay behind me, came forward and bowed as if to an audience.  “I’ve been taking her to where she goes, Mr. Thorne, and grannie knows all the places.  There ain’t one that’s got a disease in it, and Mr. Crimm would tell us if it wasn’t right to go to them.  She don’t ever go anywhere by herself.  She’s too new yet.”

Selwyn smiled grudgingly.  Bettina’s fat and short little body made effort to stretch to protective requirements, and her keen eyes raised to his held them for a moment.  Then she turned to me.

“Maybe he’d like to go to some of the homes we go to and see—­”

“No.  He doesn’t want to see.”  I caught her hand and slipped it through my arm.  “It’s much more comfortable not to see.  One can sleep so much better.  Are you going our way?” I turned to Selwyn.  “If you are, we’d better start.”

For a full block we said nothing.  Selwyn, biting the ends of his close-cut mustache, walked beside me, hands in his pockets and eyes straight ahead, and not until Bettina had twice asked him if he knew where Rowland Street was did he answer her.

“Rowland Street?” He turned abruptly, as if brought back to something far removed in thought.  “What on earth do you know of Rowland Street?”

“Nothing—­I never knew there was a street by that name until last week when I heard a girl talking to grannie, who said she lived on it.  She did her hands, when she talked, just like the girl with you did.”  Bettina twisted hers in imitative movements.  “She didn’t keep her hands still a minute.”