“That’s how I make my living,” was Gerry’s unexpectedly brusk reply. But, apparently without knowing it, he still held her hand in his.
“It’s awfully, awfully good of you,” she repeated, as she reached with her free hand to restore the scarf which had slipped off her shoulder.
“It’s not a bit good of me,” he countered, almost harshly, as he put the scarf back where it belonged. And she would have been afraid of him, with that sudden black look in his eyes, if she hadn’t remembered that Gerald Rhindelander West was a gentleman, a man of her own world and her own way of looking at things. And she rather liked that touch of camaraderie which was expressing itself in the unconsidered big-brothery weight of his hand on her unaverted shoulder.
“I feel so—so safe with you,” she reassured him, with that misty look in her up-raised eyes which can seem so much like a sigh made visible. And it was beginning to be a luxury, she felt, to find somebody she could feel that way with.
“Well, you’re not!” he said in a voice that was almost a bark.
“Why do you mean I’m not?” she asked, perplexed, with a still more searching study of his face.
“I mean because——”
He did not finish. Instead, with his hand still on her shoulder, he stooped and kissed her.
Teddie recoiled three full steps, and stood with her arms straight at her sides and a black rage in her startled eyes. Gerry’s own hands had dropped to his side, and his head fell forward, for all the world like a chrysanthemum that needed watering.
“O-o-o-o-o-o!” gasped Teddie, with the most unmistakable accents of loathing and anger in her voice. “Are all men like that?”