Jerry, who was thin and pinched in the face, saw in front of him an ample and splendid young woman--not very young to him, for his notion of youthfulness was rather narrow, but much younger than his mother, though much older than Nell, his fancy of the Square, whose years did correspond with his notion of youthfulness. Elsie was slightly taller than himself. He thought she had the nicest, kindest face he had ever seen. He loved her brow when she frowned in doubt or anxiety; for him even her aprons were different from any other woman's aprons. He was precocious, in love as in other matters, but he did not love Elsie, did not aspire to love her. She was above him, out of his reach; he went in awe of her; he liked to feel that she was his tyrant. She was the most romantic, mysterious, and beautiful of all women and girls. Elsie very well understood his attitude towards her.
"I thought I might want yer to run down to the hospital for me, Jerry my boy," she said. "But I shan't now. Mrs. Earlforward died this afternoon."
"It's all over the Square," said Jerry, spitting negligently into the dark fireplace, and pushing his cap further back on his head.
Elsie saw that he did not understand death.
"Yes," said she, "I suppose it is." She said no more, because of the uselessness of talking about death to a simple-minded youth like Jerry.
"It was very nice of you to bring me my umbrella like that," she said.
"Oh!" said he, falsely scornful of himself. "It was easiest for me to bring it along like that."
He had been standing with his legs apart; at this point he sat down familiarly and put his elbows on the desk and his jaw in his hands; the cigarette hung loosely in his very mobile lips. They were silent; Jerry was proud and happy, and had nothing in particular to say about it. Elsie had too much to say to be able to talk.
"Then ye haven't got anything for me to do?" he asked.
"But I might have to-morrow. You'll be off at two o'clock to-morrow, won't yer?"
Jerry was extraordinarily uplifted by this brief sojourn alone with Elsie in the private office of T. T. Riceyman's. He felt that he was more of a grown man than ten thousand cigarettes and oaths and backchat with fragile virgins in the Square could make him. He sprang from the chair.