“It’s alright,” the man said without looking away from the girl. “Let her speak.”

The girl swallowed hard, gathering courage the way a person gathers the last embers of a dying fire.

“I… I’m not asking for money,” she whispered. “I just… I just wanted to eat with someone. Not alone.”

Her small hands clung to the straps of a faded pink backpack. The man noticed how her knuckles had turned white from gripping it. He also noticed — painfully — how people at nearby tables stared, some with pity, others with thinly veiled disapproval, as if her presence tainted the elegant atmosphere.