Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/104

 so sunny and right and normal, and it was grateful and soothing to hear her tell how hard she worked all morning at her painting, which he took as seriously as she wanted him to. Only she wished he wouldn't make her forget and talk so much about herself; she thought it must bore him a good deal. It did not bore him. And after he left she sometimes wondered what he must think of her. He thought well of her.

But it was such a contrast, listening to this gentle-voiced girl, who believed in him, to mingling and talking with the sorts and conditions of humanity he met in his work, who hated him, that it somehow seemed wrong to have been in her presence and to touch her hand when he said good-by. Then the L road plunged him into the dark vortex of the metropolis once more, and soon he was out upon the busy, crowded streets again, after more of the stuff called news, for New Yorkers to devour and complain about with their breakfast. … Or else this was wrong.

He had been at it long enough now, he