“You’re a dear good boy, John,” she answered.  “We shall always be awfully good friends, and perhaps, some day ...  Now you must tell me all your plans.”

“Ladies first,” I objected.

“Well, my heart is still in Newfoundland, you know.  But I’m going to stay at least a year in New York.  I’m going to work among the poorest and most unpleasant, because I want to become self-reliant.  Then I shall go back home.  Think of a trained nurse let loose in some of those outports!  I should just revel in it.  I am an heiress worth five hundred dollars a year of my own.  That would keep a lot of people up there.  You see, I have a theory!”

“Will you be so kind as to share it with me?” I asked.

“Well, ordinary nursing is a humdrum thing” and there are thousands to do it.  It is the same thing with you.  Just now, having no practice as yet, you are working in laboratories with a lot of others; you run around hospitals—­also with a crowd.  What do you know about your ability to go right out and do a man’s work, by yourself?  That is what counts, to my mind.”

“I see the point,” I informed her, “and you expect surely to return to the land of codfish.”

“Yes,” she nodded, “and now what about you?”

“Oh, I am going there next week,” I replied.  She opened her eyes very wide, vaguely scenting some sort of joke, but in this she erred.

“I see no use in remaining here,” I said, with a determination as strong as it was recent.  “It would take me a long time to put myself on the level of men like Taurus, and I don’t want a lot of nurses falling in love with me; I only asked for one.  You are going back after a time.  Very well, I’m going now, and I’ll wait for you.  I can easily find some place where a doctor is badly needed.  You will answer my letters, won’t you?”

“I promise,” she said, very gravely, “and it is a very good idea.  One can always do a man’s work up there.”

She ate a Nesselrode pudding while I enjoyed coffee and a cigar, to the extent that I forgot to drink the one and allowed the other to go out after a puff or two.

“Your money came from a good St. John’s merchant who made it from the people of the outports,” she said.  “You might spend a little on them now, gracefully.  They need it badly enough.”

We remained silent for some time, thinking of the bleak coast of our big island, where the price of our little dinner would have represented a large sum, and then we left the restaurant and took a car up town.

When she finally held out her little hand to me it was warm, and I fancied that from it came a current that was comforting, though it may have been but the affectionate regard of some years of good friendship.

“You will dine again with me, next Thursday?” I asked her.  “It will take me a few days to get ready.”

“Don’t you think that Gordian knot had better be cut at once?” advised Dora.  “I won’t change my mind, and you know I’ve always been an obstinate thing.  There are important things for both of us to achieve, somewhere.  I must grope about to find my share of them, for I feel like the ship that did not find itself till it encountered a storm or two.  If I promised to meet you next week you would keep on hoping.  Do plunge right in now instead of shivering on the bank.”