"You're really awfully kind. I hesitated to suggest it. I do hope you'll forgive me."
She looked up quickly, and into his eyes.
"I shall be delighted to give you a ring," she said, with sweet, smiling eagerness. "It's no trouble at all. None at all, I assure you."
She was the divine embodiment of the human and specially feminine desire to please, to please charmingly, to please completely, to please with the whole force and beauty of her individuality. The poor boy must get a few hours' sleep. A man needed sleep; sleep was important to him. As for her, the woman's task was to watch and work, and when the moment came she would wake the man--the child--who was incapable of waking himself.
"Well, thanks ever so much." He rose.
"I suppose you don't want a carbon of your article as well?" she suggested.
"It's an idea," he agreed. "You never know. I think I will have a carbon."
As he was leaving he said abruptly: "Do you know, I imagine I've seen you before--somewhere."
"I don't think so." She did not quite like this remark of his. It seemed to her to be a commonplace device for prolonging the interview; it shook her faith in his probity.
But he insisted, nodding his head.