"I shall tell them all about you," she went on, "and how kind you were to me when I scarcely knew you at all. You couldn't have been kinder if you'd been my only cousin."
"Say 'brother,'" he laughed awkwardly.
"No, really, I'm quite serious. I never thanked you properly. Perhaps I seemed to take it all as a matter of course."
He wished to heaven she would stop.
"I'm disgusted that you are going," he grumbled, putting his hands behind his head,—"disgusted."
"In many ways I am sorry too. But don't you think I am doing the right thing?"
"How am I to tell?" he returned quickly. "All I know is that when you go I shall be left all alone by my little self. You must think of me sometimes in my lonely garret." His tone was light and whimsical, but she would not follow his lead.
"I shall often think of you," she said musingly, scanning intently the toe of her shoe.
It seemed to him that she desired to say something serious, to justify herself to him, but could not gather courage to frame the words.