Where Two Ways Met by Grace Livingston Hill Page B

either, of course. Being the unselfish person you are, you wouldn’t stop for even a mouthful.”
    June laughed.
    “And how about you? I suppose you sat down and ate a turkey dinner during that five minutes you spent in your home getting those supplies.”
    He laughed.
    “Not a chance. I didn’t even let Mother pour down a drop of her nice hot coffee that she tried to choke me with. So, how about our stopping at the Sterling on our way home? It isn’t but half a block out of our way, and I confess, I could easily eat a whole cow if one was cut up into steaks.”
    “All right,” said June. “I’m hungry, too. But why do you have to choose such a swell place as the Sterling? Don’t you think perhaps the sharp contrast might affect us badly? It certainly would be going from poverty to riches.”
    “I know,” Paige said grinning, “but I’m not sure that any other decent place would be open at this hour, and I really think we rate a good meal, don’t you?”
    “Well, that’s all right with me, only isn’t the Sterling a pretty swell place? And I’ve only a plain little gingham dress on. All the high and mighties will be in evening dress.”
    “What difference does that make?” said Paige with a grin. “And besides, that’s a pretty dress and very becoming. It just matches your eyes.”
    June rippled a laugh.
    “I don’t see where you’ve had time to see what color my eyes are, or my dress either, but if you don’t mind taking a rather crumpled nurse to the swellest place in town, it’s all right with me.”
    “Okay with me. I rather enjoy shocking some people. But we’ll have fun.”
    “Well, I think you are a pretty good sport after all we’ve been through, that you can talk about having fun.”
    “Well, we had to do that in war, you know. Take a bit of fun in between the desperate situations. And besides, things are coming out for our protégés pretty well. I think I can enjoy a bit of fun. By the way, how is Nannie, really? Did the doctor give you any more light?”
    “Yes, he thinks she’ll come out of this in a few days. She’s undernourished, of course, but we can remedy that in time. But you, how did you make out with that poor discouraged father? It’s his pride that has made all this trouble.”
    “Yes, he is proud, but I’m inclined to think the troublemaker goes further than that. The mortgage people are cruel and have scared him out of his senses. Do you know he’s spent the last two days tramping everywhere trying to borrow money enough to pay the interest and a pitiful little sum on the principal? Of course, he is shabbily dressed, and he probably went to strangers and they wouldn’t let him have it. But I told him I would arrange it for him, and he finally succumbed, ate some soup and coffee, and dropped off to sleep like a babe.”
    “Do you mean you really can get a loan for him?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “But won’t it cost him a horrible amount of interest these days?”
    “No, I’ll fix that all up for him.”
    “I think you are wonderful, Mr. Madison.”
    “Call me Paige, please. I’ll feel more natural that way, and after all the things we’ve been through together this afternoon, I don’t see that we should be formal, should we—June?”
    “Of course not,” said June with satisfaction, “but I can’t get over it that you went along with me and did all that,” she added softly. “It was God who sent you, of course.”
    Paige grew a bit sober.
    “Well, perhaps, though I wasn’t conscious of heavenly direction. There was a telephone message that obviously was important, a little girl dying, and you had no car to go. Why shouldn’t I take you? It wasn’t a great thing to do.”
    “No, of course not. And it wasn’t anything to lend that man the money to hold his house, and all the rest that you did. Only a true servant of the Lord would have done all that, I am sure.”
    She gave him a bright look that had in it a question, and was almost