Kern desired to cry.  But that would be very ridiculous, in a store, and doubtless annoying to Others.  So the little girl began to wink hard, while staring fixedly at a given point.  You could often pass it off that way, and nobody a whit the wiser.

“I’ve happened to have the Works on my mind a little of late,” added Carlisle, almost as if in apology.  “But I—­I’m really glad to see you again.”

She perceived the signs of agitation in the little work-girl, and attributing it all to the twenty-dollar bill, saw that she must pave the way to a conversation.  And conversation, now that the ice was broken, she eagerly desired, fascinated by the thought that this girl knew at first-hand everything about the Works.

“Let me see—­your name is Corinne, isn’t it?”

Kern’s eyes, wider than ever, shot back to the lady’s face.  A new wonder here!—­Miss Heth said it just like in the Dream:  Co-rinne.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Co-rinne, with a little gulp and a sniff.

“And what are you doing at the Men’s Furnishing counter, Corinne?” said Carlisle, pleasantly but quite at random.  “Buying a present for Mr. V.V., I suppose?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Having taken Carlisle completely aback, she hesitated and then added timidly: 

“Only a fulldress-shirt protector—­for his birthday, y’ know?...  All his sick give him little presents now’n then, ma’am, find out his sizes and all.  You know how he is, spending all his money on them, and never thinking about himself, and giving away the clo’es off his back.”

“Yes, I know....  Find out his sizes?”

“Yes, ma’am.  Like, say, ’Why, Mr.—­why, Dr. Vivian, what small feet you got, sir, for a gempman!’ And he’ll say, like, ’I don’t call six and a half C so small!’ Yes, ma’am—­just as innocent.”

A block and a half away, Hugo Canning’s car whirled to a standstill, and Hugo sat gazing at the select door of Morland’s.  In Baird & Himmel’s vast commonwealth, Kern Garland sat beside Miss Carlisle Heth at Gentlemen’s Furnishings, and could not look at the lady’s lovely clothes since her eyes could not bear to leave the yet lovelier face.  Kern had not confided the secret of the protector without a turning of her heart, but now at least the thrill in her rose above that....  She and Mr. V.V.’s beautiful lady, side by side....  It was nearly as good as the velvet settee in the Dream—­only for the founting, and the boy with the pink lamp on his head, and Mr. V.V....

An extremely full-busted Saleslady, with snapping black eyes, deposited a lean bundle and a ten-cent piece before the work-girl, oddly murmured something that sounded like ‘Look who’s ear,’ and then said proudly to Carlisle: 

“What did you wish ’m?”

“Nothing just now, thank you.”

The Saleslady gave her a glance of intense disapproval, pushed down her generous waist-line, arrogantly patted a coal-black transformation, and wheeled with open indignation.