glad to help you in any way that I could."
"How do you like my editorials?" he demanded abruptly.
"I'm afraid I don't understand a line of them!"
He waved his hand indulgently, like a grandfather receiving the just
tribute of his little ones. "They are for thinkers, experts," said he,
and picked up his pencil.
The agent took the hint; pushed back her chair; her glove was unbuttoned
and she slowly fastened it. In her heart was a great compassion for the
little Doctor.
"Mr. Queed, I want you to know that if I ever could be of help to you
about _anything_, I'd always think it a real pleasure. Please remember
that, won't you? Did you know I lived down this way, in the daytime?"
"Lived?"
She made a gesture toward the window, and away to the south and east.
"My office is only three blocks away, down there in the park--"
"Your office? You don't work!"
"Oh, don't I though!"
"Why, I thought you were a _lady_!"
They were so close together that she was compelled to laugh full in his
face, disclosing two rows of splendid little teeth and the tip of a rosy
little tongue. Probably she could have crushed him by another pointing
gesture, turned this time toward her honored great-grandfather who stood
in marble in the square; but what was the use?
"What are you laughing at?" he inquired mildly.
"At your definition of a lady. Where on earth did you get it? Out of
those laws of human society you write every night at my aunt's?"
"No," said he, the careful scientist at once, "no, I admit, if you like,
that I used the term in a loose, popular sense. I would not seriously
contend that females of gentle birth and breeding--ladies in the
essential sense--are never engaged in gainful occupations--"
"You shouldn't," she laughed, "not in this city at any rate. It might
astonish you to know how many females of gentle birth and breeding are
engaged in gainful occupations on this one block alone. It was not ever
thus with them. Once they had wealth and engaged in nothing but
delicious leisure. But in 1861 some men came down here, about six to
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