"Oh, yes. The Cosmos, the Butterfly and several others--" He broke off with a laugh. "You see, I'm supposed to be something of a swell"--
"You don't look much of a swell today," she said with a glance at his clothes. "And Finnegan's, though exclusive for the Bowery, is hardly what might be called smart. I _am_ curious, Jerry. Curiosity is one of my besetting sins--otherwise I'd never have gotten inside your wall. I've been wondering what on earth you could have been doing in Finnegan's saloon."
Jerry sipped at his tea and was silent. The girl's eyes still questioned good-humoredly and then, still smiling, looked away. But Jerry would not speak. A coward she had once called him. Was it that he feared her sober judgment of this wild plan of his? Did he see something hazardous in the conservatism of her calm slate-blue eyes that would put his new mode of thought, his new habit of mind to tests which they might not survive?
"I--I said it was on business of Flynn's," he evaded at last. "He's a very good friend of mine. It wouldn't interest you in the least, you know," he finished lamely.
"Possibly not," she said calmly. "I hope you'll forgive my impertinence."
He felt the change in her tone and was up in arms at once. "Don't talk in that way, Una. I'd let you know if there was any possible use." He paused and then decidedly, "But there isn't, you see. Won't you take my word for it?"
"You know I _am_ a curious creature, unduly so about this. But you _do_ seem a little like the Caliph in the Arabian Nights, or Prince Florizel in London. You aren't a second-story man, are you? Or a member of a suicide club?"
He gazed at her in perplexity and then laughed. "You're just as real as ever, aren't you?"
"Real! I should hope so. But _you_ aren't. The first time I see you, you're a woodland philosopher, living on berries and preaching in the wilderness; the second time, you're merely a caged enthusiast without a mission; the third time you're Haroun al Raschid, smoking cigarettes at Finnegan's. I wonder what you're going to be next."
He felt the light sting of irony, but her humor disarmed him.
"I'm not going to be anything else," he said slowly. "And I'm not an enthusiast without a mission. I may have been then, but I'm not now. You don't just understand. I'm pretty busy in a way, learning the ropes, business, social and all the rest of them, but I'm not idle. I'm learning something all the time, Una, and I'm going to try to help--I can, too."