“Well, that’s the way with ignorant people. She’s got a sty on her eye. Doctor could have lanced it last week, and she’d be feeling fine now. Only she hasn’t got the gumption to do what’s right, because some time somebody told her never to let a doctor operate. So what happens? The sty gets bigger and hurts like the devil. She can’t blame herself, of course. That wouldn’t do. So she hates me because I can’t cure her.”

Mr. Higgins crushed his cigar in a tray.

“Well,” he said, “I better get to work, I suppose. If you need anything, I’ll be back in the back.”

Ella felt sorry for her employer and wondered at the same time how he managed to retain his good humor. People were always complaining that his medicine didn’t work. She watched him put on his white jacket, then she washed the coffee cup and saucer and dried them.

The stranger called Adam—she couldn’t remember his last name—was still in the telephone booth, talking, hanging up, putting another dime in, talking. She thought of the way he’d gone about asking her for a date—a way that kept her from even realizing what was happening!—and she felt the quickening of her heart again.

She tried to forget about his presence in the store, but could not. Even as she fussed, aimlessly, joggling things out of order and setting them straight again, she knew that he was there.

He came out once and, after removing his jacket, asked for a Dr. Pepper. Perspiration had beaded his forehead. His shirt was stained dark below the armpits and around the waist, and for some reason this looked odd. It was odd to think that the stranger perspired the same way everybody else did . . . But then he went back, closing the door after him. Nothing much had changed, except that his face bore a slightly different, slightly more cheerful expression.