“I should like some clean clothes,” I put in, flippantly.
“Don’t.” And she gestured and frowned. “I want you to feel what it must be to me, and then to think, as I was thinking a while since, what would have been my fate—if it had not been for you. And you call this a plight! It is like Heaven in comparison!”
“I don’t want you to exaggerate what I did.”
“I am not exaggerating it,” she replied deliberately. “I don’t. I could not. You risked your life for me and saved me. Not only when you rescued me from the two men, but afterwards with Karasch; and yet again afterwards when you were hurt. Could I exaggerate that, Burgwan? Can I ever repay it?”
She was so earnest in the desire to make me feel her gratitude and looked at me with such sweet graciousness, that I came within an ace of telling her how she could repay me. The very words rushed to my lips only to be stayed by an effort as I dropped my eyes before her. I could not speak of this while she was still dependent upon my help.
“What a long time Karasch is,” I said clumsily after a long pause, not knowing indeed what else to say.
I felt her eyes still upon me. She made a slight gesture of dissatisfaction and her voice had an accent of resentment.
“You are anxious to get to your clean clothes and all that they stand for—in exchange for this.”
“You are not content with this?”
“I could be,” she murmured, with a sigh.