Even then he didn’t know her.  He did not dream that this straight, slim, tailored, white-haired woman, bargaining so shrewdly with these men, was the Emma Byers of the old days.  But he stopped there a moment, in frank curiosity, and the woman looked up.  She looked up, and he knew those intelligent eyes and that serene brow.  He had carried the picture of them in his mind for more than thirty years, so it was not so surprising.  And time deals kindly with women who have intelligent eyes and serene brows.

He did not hesitate.  He might have if he had thought a moment, but he acted automatically.  He stood before her.  “You’re Emma Byers, ain’t you?”

She did not know him at first.  Small blame to her, so completely had the roguish, vigorous boy vanished in this sallow, sad-eyed old man.  Then:  “Why, Ben!” she said, quietly.  And there was pity in her voice, though she did not mean to have it there.  She put out one hand—­that capable, reassuring hand—­and gripped his and held it a moment.  It was queer and significant that it should be his hand that lay within hers.

“Well, what in all get-out are you doing around here, Emma?” He tried to be jovial and easy.  She turned to the aproned man with whom she had been dealing and smiled.

“What am I doing here, Joe?” she said.

Joe grinned, waggishly.  “Nothin’; only beatin’ every man on the street at his own game, and makin’ so much money that—­”

But she stopped him there.  “I guess I’ll do my own explaining.”  She turned to Ben again.  “And what are you doing here in Chicago?”

Ben passed a faltering hand across his chin.  “Me?  Well, I’m—­we’re livin’ here, I s’pose.  Livin’ here.”

She glanced at him, sharply.  “Left the farm, Ben?”

“Yes.”

“Wait a minute.”  She concluded her business with Joe; finished it briskly and to her own satisfaction.  With her bright brown eyes and her alert manner and her quick little movements she made you think of a wren—­a business-like little wren—­a very early wren that is highly versed in the worm-catching way.

At her next utterance he was startled but game.  “Have you had your lunch?”

“Why, no; I—­”

“I’ve been down here since seven, and I’m starved.  Let’s go and have a bite at the little Greek restaurant around the corner.  A cup of coffee and a sandwich, anyway.”

Seated at the bare little table, she surveyed him with those intelligent, understanding, kindly eyes, and he felt the years slip from him.  They were walking down the country road together, and she was listening quietly and advising him.

She interrogated him, gently.  But something of his old masterfulness came back to him.  “No, I want to know about you first.  I can’t get the rights of it, you being here on South Water, tradin’ and all.”

So she told him, briefly.  She was in the commission business.  Successful.  She bought, too, for such hotels as the Blackstone and the Congress, and for half a dozen big restaurants.  She gave him bare facts, but he was shrewd enough and sufficiently versed in business to know that here was a woman of wealth and established commercial position.