“When you met me that night on the Sacramento boat, and looked at me, did you—did I,” she hesitated,—“did you look at me because I had been crying?”
“I thought you were troubled in spirit, and looked so.”
“I suppose I looked worried, of course; I had no time to change or even fix my hair; I had on that green dress, and it NEVER was becoming. And you only spoke to me on account of my awful looks?”
“I saw only your wrestling soul, Ellen, and I thought you needed comfort and help.”
She was silent for a moment, and then, leaning forward, picked up the poker and began to thrust it absently between the bars.
“And if it had been some other girl crying and looking awful, you'd have spoken to her all the same?”
This was a new idea to Mr. Rylands, but with most men logic is supreme. “I suppose I would,” he said slowly.
“And married her?” She rattled the bars of the grate with the poker as if to drown the inevitable reply.
Mr. Rylands loved the woman before him, but it pleased him to think that he loved truth better. “If it had been necessary to her salvation, yes,” he said.
“Not Tinkie?” she said suddenly.