Next to Pelham Bay Park toward the south is a handsome private property. On the low boundary wall of this, facing the road and directly under a ragged cherry-tree, Lila seated herself. She was "all in." She must wait until a vehicle of some sort passed and beg for a lift. She was half-starved; her feet could no longer carry her. A motor thrilled by at high speed, a fiery, stinking dragon in the night. Mosquitoes tormented her. She had no strength with which to oppose them. The hand in which she had held the poison-ivy was beginning to itch and swell.
A second motor approached slowly and came to a halt. A young man got out, opened one of the headlights, struck a match, and lighted it. Then he lighted the other. The low stone wall on which Lila sat and Lila herself were embraced by the ring of illumination. It must have been obvious to any one but a fool that Lila was out of place in her surroundings; her peach-basket hat, the oxford ties of which she had been so proud, told a story of city breeding. Her face, innocent and childlike, was very touching.
The young man shut off his motor, so that there was a sudden silence. "Want a lift somewhere?" he asked cheerfully.
Lila could not remember when she had been too young to be warned against the advances of strange men. "They give you a high old time, and then they expect to be paid for it," had been so dinned into her that if she had given the young man a sharp "No" for an answer it would have been almost instinctive. Training and admonition rose strong within her. She felt that she was going to refuse help. The thought was intolerable. Wherefore, instead of answering, she burst into tears.
A moment later the young man was sitting by her side, and she was pouring her tale of a day gone wrong into amused but sympathetic ears.
His voice and choice of words belonged to a world into which she had never looked. She could not help trusting him and believing that he was good--even when he put his arm around her and let her finish her cry on his shoulder.
"And your friend left you--and you've got no car fare, and you've had nothing to eat, and you can't walk any more because your shoes are too tight. And you live----?"
"I could take you right home to your mother," he said, "but I won't. That would be a good ending to a day gone wrong, but not the best. Come."