She was homeward bound from a piano lesson, and carried a rolled leather
case of sheet music--something he couldn't imagine Milla carrying--and
in her young girl's dress, which attempted to be nothing else, she
looked as wholesome as cold spring water. Ramsey had always felt
that she despised him and now, all at once, he thought that she was
justified. Leper that he had become, he was unworthy to be even touching
his cap to her! And as she nodded and went briskly on, he would have
given anything to turn and walk a little way with her, for it seemed to
him that this might fumigate his morals. But he lacked the courage, and,
besides, he considered himself unfit to be seen walking with her.
He had a long afternoon of anguishes, these becoming most violent when
he tried to face the problem of his future course toward Milla. He did
not face it at all, in fact, but merely writhed, and had evolved nothing
when Friday evening was upon him and Milla waiting for him to take her
to the "band concert" with "Alb and Sade." In his thoughts, by that
time, this harmless young pair shared the contamination of his own
crime, and he regarded them with aversion; however, he made shift to
seek a short interview with Albert, just before dinner.
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