“Una!” he said.  “Don’t you know me?”

“Yes, Jerry.  Of course, but it seems so strange to see you—­here—­” She paused.  “To see you down here—­in the Bowery.”

“It is, isn’t it?” he stammered.  “But I—­I’ll explain in a minute—­if you’ll let me walk with you.”

She looked him over with a sober air, her gaze passing for a moment over his soft hat pulled down over the eyes, his rough clothing, the cigarette in his fingers (he hadn’t really begun rigid training yet), and then shrugged.

“Of course, I can have no objection,” she said coolly.

Jerry threw the cigarette away.

“I suppose you think it’s very curious to see me down here at Finnegan’s,” Jerry repeated.

No reply.

“I’ve been there on—­er—­a matter of business—­with—­with Flynn.  He’s my athletic instructor, you know.  It’s a sort of secret.  I—­I’m supposed to belong up town.”

“Oh, are you?” Still, I think, the cool, indifferent tone.

“You know I—­I’m awfully glad to see you.  I’ve been hunting for you ever since I came out of the—­the asylum—­you know.”

It must have pleased her that Jerry should have remembered her phrase.

“Really!” her tone melting a little.  “It’s pleasant to be—­remembered.”

She turned and again searched him slowly with her gaze, smiling a little.

“How long have you been in New York?”

“Oh, ages—­almost two months.”

“And in that time,” she said quizzically, “the Faun has learned the habit of saloons and cigarettes.  You’ve progressed, haven’t you?”

“Oh, I say, Una.  That’s not quite fair.  I don’t make a habit of saloons, and a cigarette once in a while doesn’t hurt a fellow if his wind and heart are good.”

“And are your wind and heart good?” she asked with her puzzling smile.

“Now you’re making fun of me.  You always did though, didn’t you?  You know it’s awfully fine to hear you talk like that.  Makes it seem as if we’d just met by the big rock on the Sweetwater.  You remember, don’t you?”

“Yes, I remember,” she replied.

He eyed her sober little profile curiously.  She seemed strangely demure.

“I don’t think you’re very glad to see me,” he said.  “I thought perhaps you would be.  There were so many things that we began to talk about and didn’t finish.  I’ve thought about them a good deal.  I really want to talk to you about them again.  Couldn’t we—­er—­go somewhere and—­Have you had lunch yet?  Can’t we find a place to get a cup of tea?”

She turned toward him and their eyes met.  When her gaze turned away from him she was smiling.

“Yes.  I’d like a cup of tea,” she said after a moment of deliberation.

He didn’t very well know this part of the city, but he remembered a restaurant he had once gone to with Flynn, the very one, it seems, where I had taken refuge.  And there they were, looking at each other across the table, the girl, as Jerry expressed it, a little demure, a little quizzical, possibly a little upon the defensive, but friendly enough.  If she hadn’t been friendly, he argued, most properly, she wouldn’t have come with him.