if I had the money, because I couldn’t leave the parsonage.  So it’s just as well about the money, after all.  But Chicago must be very nice.  He told me about the White City, and the big parks, and the elevated railways, and all the pretty restaurants and hotels.  I love pretty places to eat.  You might tell me about Des Moines.  Is it very nice?  Are there lots of rich people there?—­Of course, I do not really care any more about the rich people than the others, but it always makes a city seem grand to have a lot of rich citizens, I think.  Don’t you?”

So he told her about Des Moines, and Prudence lay with her eyes half-closed, listening, and wondering why there was more music in his voice than in most voices.  Her ankle did not hurt very badly.  She did not mind it at all.  In fact, she never gave it a thought.  From beneath her lids, she kept her eyes fastened on Jerrold Harmer’s long brown hands, clasped loosely about his knees.  And whenever she could, she looked up into his face.  And always there was that curious catching in her breath, and she looked away again quickly, feeling that to look too long was dangerous.

“I have talked my share now,” he was saying, “tell me all about yourself, and the parsonage, and your family.  And who is Fairy?  And do you attend the college at Mount Mark?  You look like a college girl.”

“Oh, I am not,” said Prudence, reluctant to make the admission for the first time in her life.  “I am too stupid to be a college girl.  Our mother is not living, and I left high school five years ago and have been keeping house for my father and sisters since then.  I am twenty years old.  How old are you?”

“I am twenty-seven,” and he smiled.

“Jerrold Harmer,” she said slowly and very musically.  “It is such a nice name.  Do your friends call you Jerry?”

“The boys at school called me Roldie, and sometimes Hammie.  But my mother always called me Jerry.  She isn’t living now, either.  You call me Jerry, will you?”

“Yes, I will, but it won’t be proper.  But that never makes any difference to me,—­except when it might shock the members!  You want me to call you Jerry, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.  And when we are better acquainted, will you let me call you Prudence?”

“Call me that now.—­I can’t be too particular, you see, when I am lying on your coat and pillowed with your belongings.  You might get cross, and take them away from me.—­Did you go to college?”

“Yes, to Harvard, but I was not much of a student.  Then I knocked around a while, looking at the world, and two years ago I went home to Des Moines.  I have been there ever since except for little runs once in a while.”

Prudence sighed.  “To Harvard!—­I am sorry now that I did not go to college myself.”

“Why?  There doesn’t seem to be anything lacking about you.  What do you care about college?”