"Not at all. I am only too happy to be of use—in the absence of your other friends."
She would not notice this little sneer, but said good-bye and turned to walk upstairs. Paul, ashamed of himself, made an effort to detain her. "Is there anything I can do for you, Miss King?" he asked, gruffly indeed, but with an appeal for forbearance in his eyes. "Do you want your books changed or anything?"
She stood on the bottom step of the stairs, and thought for a moment; and then she said, dropping her eyes, "I—I think you have a book that I should like to borrow—if I might."
"Most happy. What book is it?"
"It is one of Thackeray's. I think you told us you had a complete edition of Thackeray that some one gave you for a birthday present. I scarcely know which volume it is, but it has something in it about a man being hanged—and a crowd—" She broke off with an embarrassed laugh, hearing how oddly it sounded.
"You must mean the 'Sketches,'" he said. "There is a paper entitled 'Going to See a Man Hanged' in the 'London Sketches'—"
"That is the book I mean."
"All right—I'll get it and send it in to you at once—with pleasure."
"Oh, thank you. I'm so much obliged to you. I'll take the greatest care of it," she assured him fervently.