George blushed. “I was going to give him twenty-five, but Bill said he was such a swell he must have fifty. So I had to let it go at that.”
“Weakening already!” mocked she. “Five dollars would have been too much. He’s a frightful cad—always fawning on rich people and hunting a rich wife—and he a servant of Jesus Christ.”
“You’ll have to look after the money, Ellen,” confessed Helm. “I’m a fool about it. I’ve got mighty little use for the blamed stuff, anyhow. Besides, it’ll give you something to do.”
She looked at him with a shrewd smile.
“You’re going to test me?—isn’t that it?”
He nodded. “I want to find out just what you’ve got to learn. Just because I had to go into this, I didn’t go in blind. I can’t do things that way.”
“I guess we’ve both been doing a lot of thinking since last spring.” She slipped her hand into his. “I don’t know what I’ve got to learn, but I do know that I’m going to learn it.”
He looked at her, with that expression in his eyes which gave her the sense of love and strength and tenderness superhuman. He said:
“Yes—I can count on you, Ellen.”
“As long as you look at me like that,” said she, “I’ll not ever be anything but happy. I’d not be a woman, if I were.”