“He did not mean to touch me. Cress has punished himself—quite enough,” she murmured. “Jack—look happy again,—don’t look like that.”
He did his best to obey; not very successfully.
The faintness soon passed off, but Maimie seemed so shaken and unnerved that Jack had presently to carry her upstairs.
“I am very sorry,” she said gently, as he laid her on the bed.
“I think I am the one to be most sorry,” Jack answered. “To think of your dear little arm being hurt for me! Maimie, you must never do such a thing again.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t then, if I had had time to think,” she said. “But what I am sorry for, is that I should have said anything to make Cress angry with you. Only I really cannot like him as much as—as everybody else in this house.”
“Not quite so much as you do me,” Jack said in a humble voice. “Maimie dear, you said that,—please don’t explain it away.”
“Well, it is true,” she said, smiling. “I do like you the best of the two, certainly. Thank you, Jack. Good-night.”
“And your arm doesn’t hurt very much?” he asked anxiously.
“Oh, nothing to speak of,” she said cheerfully. But Cherry and I knew by the great bruise on it next day that she must have had a good deal of pain.