"Here's luck to you—both!" she said, with a laugh. "May you be happy ever afterward, as they say in the story books," and she looked over the rim of the glass at him, with her dark eyes flashing under the thick brows.
"Thanks, Fin," he said. "You are a good sort, and——." He rose.
"But you don't want to know any more of me," she broke in. "I understand. Oh, don't apologize. I'm cute enough to see why you've told me, why you've come to me first of all. There's to be an end to our friendship——." Her voice broke for a moment, then she hurried on with forced gayety and indifference. "And you're quite right. A man who's going to settle down, doesn't want such acquaintances as me. Well, good-by."
She held out her hand.
Yorke, feeling as a man must feel under such circumstances, when he cannot contradict and would like to do so, hung his head for a moment, then he took her hand, and holding it, said:
"I'm not much loss, Fin. As I told her, I'm a bad lot, and dear at any price, and—there, good-by!"
Then he did a foolish thing. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
She quivered, almost as if he had struck her; her eyes closed, and she leaned heavily against the edge of the table.
Yorke, feeling unutterably miserable, dropped her hand and left the room. He gave the page who helped him on with his coat a sovereign, and got outside.
"Poor Fin!" he muttered, standing on the pavement and staring about him. "Poor Fin!"