Rose-Marie felt a quick wave of sympathy toward him.

“My mother and my father are dead, Dr. Blanchard—­you know that,” she told him, “but my aunts have always been splendid,” she added honestly, “and I have any number of friends!  No, I’ve never felt at all alone!”

The Young Doctor was silent for a moment.  And then—­

“It isn’t an alone feeling that I mean,” he told her, “not exactly!  It’s rather an empty feeling!  Like hunger, almost.  You see my father and mother are dead, too.  I can’t even remember them.  And I never had any aunts to be splendid to me.  My childhood—­even my babyhood—­was spent in an orphan asylum with a firm-fisted matron who punished me; with nobody to give me the love I needed.  I came out of it a hard man—­at fourteen.  I—­” he broke off, suddenly, and then—­

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” he said; “you wouldn’t be in the least interested in my school days—­they were pretty drab!  And you wouldn’t be interested in the scholarship that gave me my profession.  For,” his tone changed slightly, “you aren’t even interested in the result—­not enough to try to understand my point of view, when I attempt to tell you, frankly, just what I think of the people down here—­barring girls like these,” he pointed to the stage, “and a few others who are working hard to make good!  You act, when I say that they’re like animals, as if I’m giving you a personal insult!  You think, when I suggest that you don’t go, promiscuously, into dirty tenements, that I’m trying to curb your ambition—­to spoil your chances of doing good!  But I’m not, really.  I’m only endeavouring, for your own protection, to give you the benefit of my rather bitter experience.  I don’t want any one so young, and trusting and—­yes, beautiful—­as you are, to be forced by experience into my point of view.  We love having you here, at the Settlement House.  But I almost wish that you’d go home—­back to the place and the people that you’re lonesome for—­after the lights are out!”

Rose-Marie, watching the play of expression across his keen dark face, was struck, first of all by his sincerity.  It was only after a moment that she began to feel the old resentment creeping back.

“Then,” she said at last, very slowly, “then you think that I’m worthless here?  It seems to me that I can help the people more, just because I am fresh, and untried, and not in the least bitter!  It seems to me that by direct contact with them I may be able to show them the tender, guiding hand of God—­as it has always been revealed to me.  But you think that I’m worthless!”

There was a burst of loud singing from the raised platform.  The girls of the sewing club loved to sing.  But neither Rose-Marie nor the Young Doctor was conscious of it.

“No,” the Young Doctor answered, also very slowly, “no, I don’t think that you are worthless—­not at all.-But I’m almost inclined to think that you’re wasted.  Go home, child, go home to the little town!  Go home before the beautiful colour has worn off the edge of your dreams!”