Having swallowed coffee, why
choke over conversation? Besides, she was very comfortable. It
was warm there, with the heater at her back; better than the
little room with the sagging bed and the doors covered with wall
paper. Her feet had stopped aching, too, She could have sat there
for hours. And--why evade it?--she was interested. This whimsical
and respectful young man with his absurd talk and his shabby
clothes had roused her curiosity.
"Please," she assented.
"Then, first of all, my name. I'm getting that over early,
because it isn't much, as names go. Peter Byrne it is. Don't
shudder."
"Certainly I'm not shuddering."
"I have another name, put in by my Irish father to conciliate a
German uncle of my mother's. Augustus! It's rather a mess. What
shall I put on my professional brassplate? If I put P. Augustus
Byrne nobody's fooled. They know my wretched first name is
Peter."
"Or Patrick."
"I rather like Patrick--if I thought it might pass as Patrick!
Patrick has possibilities. The diminutive is Pat, and that's not
bad. But Peter!"
"Do you know," Harmony confessed half shyly, "I like Peter as a
name."
"Peter it shall be, then. I go down to posterity and fame as
Peter Byrne. The rest doesn't amount to much, but I want you to
know it, since you have been good enough to accept me on faith.
I'm here alone, from a little town in eastern Ohio; worked my way
through a coeducational college in the West and escaped
unmarried; did two years in a drygoods store until, by saving and
working in my vacations, I got through medical college and tried
general practice.
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