"We've been making chocolate. Won't you come in and have some? You look cold."Jeff glimpsed beyond her the warm grate fire in the room. He, too, yielded to an impulse. "Since you're so good as to ask me, Miss Nellie."She took charge of his hat and overcoat, making him sit down in a big armchair before the fire. He watched her curiously as she moved lightly about waiting on him. Nellie was a soft round little person with constant intimations of a childhood not long outgrown. Jeff judged she must be nineteen or twenty, but she had moments of being charmingly unsure ofherself. The warm color came and went in her clear cheeks at the least provocation.
"Mother's gone to bed. She always goes early. You don't mind," she asked naively.
Jeff smiled. She was, he thought, about as worldly wise as a fluffy kitten. "No, I don't mind at all," he assured her.
Nor did he in the least. His weariness was of the spirit rather than the body, and he found her grace, her shy sweetness, grateful to the jaded senses. It counted in her favor that she was not clever or ultra-modern. The dimpling smiles, the quick sympathy of this innocent, sensuous young creature, drew him out of his depression. When he left the pleasant warmth of the room half an hour later it was with a little glow at the heart. He had found comfort and refreshment.
How it came to pass Jeff never quite understood, but it soon was almost a custom for him to drop into the living room to get a cup of chocolate when he came home. He found himself looking forward to that half hour alone with Nellie Anderson. Whoever else criticized him, she did not. The manner in which she made herself necessary to his material comfort was masterly. She would be waiting, eager to help him off with his overcoat, hot chocolate and sandwiches ready for him in the cozy living-room. To him, who for years had lived a hand-to-mouth boarding house existence, her shy wholesome laughter made that room sing of home, one which her personality fitted to a dot. She was always in good humor, always trim and neat, always alluring to the eye. And she had the pretty little domestic ways that go to the head of a bachelor when he eats alone with an attractive girl.
Their intimacy was not exactly a secret. Mrs. Anderson, who was rather deaf and admitted to being a heavy sleeper, knew that Jeff dropped in occasionally. He suspected she did not know how regularly, but she was one of that large class of American mothers who let their daughters arrange their own love affairs and would not have interfered had she known.
Once or twice it flashed upon Jeff that this ought not to go on. Since he had no intention of marrying Nell he must not let their relationship reachthe emotional climax toward which he guessed it was racing. But his experience in such matters was limited. He did not know how to break off their friendship without hurting her, and he was eager to minimize the possibility of danger. His modesty made this last easy. Out of her kindness she was good to him, but it was not to be expected that so pretty a girl would fall in love with a man like him.
The most potent argument for letting things drift was his own craving for her. She was becoming necessary to him. Whenever he thought of her it was with a tender glow. Her soft long-lashed eyes would come between him and the editorial he was writing. A dozen times a day he could see a picture of the tilted little coaxing mouth. The gurgle of her laughter called to him for hours before he left the office.
He got into the habit of talking to her about the things that were troubling him--the tactics of the enemy, the desertion of friends, the dubious issue of the campaign. Curled up in a big chair, her whole attention absorbed in what he was saying Nellie made a good listener. If she did not show a full understanding of the situation, he could always sense her ready sympathy. Her naive, indignant loyalty was touching.
"I read what the _Advocate_ said about you today," she told him one night, a tide of color in her cheeks. "It was horrid. As if anybody would believe it.""I'm afraid a good many people do," he said gravely. "Nobody who knows you," she protested stoutly. "Yes, some who know me."He let his eyes dwell on her. It was easy to see how undisciplined of life she was, save where its material aspects had come into impact with her on the economic side.
"None of your real friends."
"How many real friends has a man--friends who will stand by him no matter how unpopular he is?""I don't know. I should think you'd have lots of them."He shook his head, a hint of a smile in his eyes. "Not many. They keep their chocolate and sandwiches for folks whose trolley do'esn't fly the wire.""What wire?" she asked, her forehead knitted to a question.
"Oh, the wire that's over the tracks of respectability and vested interests and special privilege."She had been looking at him, but now her gaze went to the fire with that slow tilt of the chin he liked. Another color wave swept the oval of the soft cheeks.
"You've got more friends than you think," she said in a low voice. "I've got one little friend I wouldn't like to lose."She did not speak and his hand moved forward to cover hers. Instantly a wild and insurgent emotion tingled through him. He felt himself trembling and could not steady his nerves.
Without a word Nellie looked up and their eyes met. Something electric flashed from one to another. Her shy fear of him was adorable.
"Oh, don't, don't!" she murmured. "What will you think of me now?" He had leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.
Jeff sprang to his feet, the muscles in his lean cheeks standing out. Some bell of warning was ringing in him. He was a man, young and desirous, subject to all the frailties of his sex, holding experiences in his past that had left him far from a puritan. And she was a woman, of unschooled impulses, with unsuspected banked passions, an innocent creature in whom primeval physical life rioted.
