their initials. They called him out, and asked if he had not
forgotten something for them. He denied it with a sad, wise smile, and
then they tried to provoke him to a belated flirtation, in lack of other
material, but he met their overtures discreetly, and they presently
said, Well, they guessed they must go; and went. Fane turned to
encounter Gregory, who had come in by a side door.

"Fane, I want to beg your pardon. I was rude to you just now."

"Oh, no! Oh, no!" the clerk protested. "That's all right. Sit down a
while, can't you, and talk with a fellow. It's early, yet."

"No, I can't. I just wanted to say I was sorry I spoke in that way.
Good-night. Is there anything in particular?"

"No; good-night. I was just wondering about--that girl."

"Oh!"

VI.

Gregory had an habitual severity with his own behavior which did not
stop there, but was always passing on to the behavior of others; and his
days went by in alternate offence and reparation to those he had to
do with. He had to do chiefly with the dining-room girls, whose
susceptibilities were such that they kept about their work bathed
in tears or suffused with anger much of the time. He was not only
good-looking but he was a college student, and their feelings were ready
to bud toward him in tender efflorescence, but he kept them cropped and
blighted by his curt words and impatient manner. Some of them loved him
for the hurts he did them, and some hated him, but all agreed fondly
or furiously that he was too cross for anything. They were mostly young
school-mistresses, and whether they were of a soft and amorous make,
or of a forbidding temper, they knew enough in spite of their hurts to
value a young fellow whose thoughts were not running upon girls all the
time. Women, even in their spring-time, like men to treat them as if
they had souls as well as hearts, and it was a saving grace in Gregory
that he treated them all, the silliest of them, as if they had souls.
Very likely they responded more with their hearts than with their souls,
but they were aware that this was not his fault.

The girls that waited at table saw that he did not distinguish in manner
between them and the girls whom they served. The knot between his brows
did not dissolve in the smiling gratitude of the young ladies whom he
preceded to their places, and pulled out their chairs for, any more than
in the blandishments of a waitress who thanked him for some correction.

They own