Again Rose-Marie felt the swift burst of anger that she had felt upon other occasions.  Why did he persist in treating her like a child?  But her voice was steady as she answered.

“Well,” she said, “I’m afraid that I’ll have to disappoint you!  For I came here with a definite plan to carry out.  And I’m going to stay here until I’ve at least partly made good!”

The Young Doctor was watching her flushed face.  He answered almost regretfully.

“Then,” he said, “I’m glad that you have a sweetheart—­you didn’t deny it, you know, the other night!  He’ll take you away from the slums, I reckon, before very long!  He’ll take you away before you’ve been hurt!”

Rose-Marie, looking straight ahead, did not answer.  But the weight of deceit upon her soul made her feel very wicked.

Yes, the weight of deceit upon her soul made her feel very wicked!  But later that night, after the club members had gone home, dizzy with many honours, it was not the weight of deceit that troubled her.  As she crept into her narrow little bed she was all at once very sorry for herself; and for a vanished dream!  Dr. Blanchard could be so nice—­when he wanted to.  He could be so understanding, so sympathetic!  There on the bench in the rear of the room they had been, for a moment, very close together.  She had nearly come back, during their few minutes of really intimate conversation, to her first glowing impression of him.  And then he had changed so suddenly—­had so abruptly thrust aside the little house of friendship that they had begun to build.  “If he would only let me,” she told herself, “I could teach him to like the things I like.  If he would only understand I could explain just how I feel about people.  If he would only give me a chance I could keep him from being so lonely.”

Rose-Marie had known few men.  The boys of her own town she scarcely regarded as men—­they were old playmates, that was all.  No one stood out from the other, they were strikingly similar.  They had carried her books to school, had shared apples with her, had played escort to prayer-meetings and to parties.  But none of them had ever stirred her imagination as the Young Doctor stirred it.

There in the dark Rose-Marie felt herself blushing.  Could it be possible that she felt an interest in the Young Doctor, an interest that was more than a casual interest?  Could it be possible that she liked a man who showed plainly, upon every possible occasion, that he did not like her?  Could it be possible that a person who read sensational stories, who did not believe in the greatness of human nature, who refused to go to church, attracted her?

Of a sudden she had flounced out of bed; had shrugged her slender little body into a shapeless wrapper—­the parting gift of a girl friend—­from which her small flushed face seemed to grow like some delicate spring blossom.  With hurried steps—­she might almost have been running away from something—­she crossed the room to a small table that served as a combination dresser and writing desk.  Brushing aside her modest toilet articles, she reached for a pad of paper and a small business-like fountain pen.  Her aunts—­she wanted them, all at once, and badly.  She wished that she might talk with them—­writing seemed so inadequate.