During the afternoon, which dragged interminably, he changed his mind a dozen times as to the advisability of telling Jean the newest news. On one hand, it seemed to be a plain duty; but there was also something to be said in rebuttal. Jean had already been given the deepest wound she could suffer, and he hoped it was beginning to heal--a little. Was it any part of kindness to reopen it? True, she might learn any day for herself that Philip had not left Denver; but every day’s delay was something gained for the healing process. About the time when, still undetermined as to which course to pursue, he was on his way to Madame Marchande’s to walk home with Jean, he suddenly remembered that he had a dinner engagement with the Follansbees. Telling himself that this postponed the decision for the time, at least, he hailed a passing hack, made a swift change to dinner clothes in his West Denver room, and kept his engagement at the house in Champa Street. It was three hours later when he had himself driven home from the rather dull dinner and its still duller aftermath. Entering the cottage living-room, he found Jean in hat and coat, as if she had just come in or was just going out, and there was a napkin-covered basket on the table beside her. “I was hoping you would come before it got too late,” she said. “Are you too tired to walk a few blocks with me?” “Never too tired when I can be of any use to you--you know that,” he answered cheerfully. “Where to?” “You remember the poor old lady who had the room next to ours in the Whittle Building, don’t you?” “Old Mrs. Grantham?--sure!” “I found a note from her when I came home this evening. She is sick and she wants me to come and see her. It is late, but I think I ought to go. She is all alone, you know; no relatives or friends. That is the pitiful thing about so many people here in Denver.” “I know. Let’s toddle along. I have been to a pretty stodgy dinner and the walk will do me good. No you don’t--I’ll carry that basket of goodies, if you please. What else am I good for, I’d like to know?” All the way down Eleventh Street to Larimer, and over the Cherry Creek bridge to the cross street leading to the dubious district centered by the Corinthian varieties and gambling rooms, Bromley was trying once more to decide whether or not to say the word which, as he made sure, would reopen the grievous wound in the sore heart of his companion. But when at last he took her arm to help her up the dark stair in the disreputable tenement opposite the Corinthian, the word was still unspoken. And the thing he was hoping for most devoutly was that they might be permitted to do their charitable errand and win back to better breathing air without running afoul of the man who, as he had ample reason to know, was now no stranger to the purlieus below Larimer Street. XXVI