“I am going to say something very frank now,” he began, transferring his gaze to her. This time her hands almost did fly to her hair. Was he going to speak of it? He continued: “I want to tell you that I know you don’t like me, and never have, and this dropping-in to-night is going to be my positively last appearance. To tell the truth—I wasn’t just passing here at all; I came out on purpose. I had to see you again—to see if you were really all right now—I haven’t seen you since your convalescence, you know. But now that I have—and you’re looking better than I’ve ever seen you—I’m not going to bother you any more by popping around.”
Joy laughed, which rather spoilt the effect of his speech. “You talk as though you were in the habit of shadowing me!”
“Well—once or twice I did take that upon myself—and I know what you must have thought of my officiousness. I didn’t have the right, which I have now assumed really does belong to someone.”
“You mean—Grant? Oh, no.” She brushed the subject aside. “I never disliked you, Jim; I just hadn’t made room for you in my mind.”
She did not realize that the change in his face was partly due to the fact that she had called him by his first name; she was so accustomed to slipping into colloquial terms on short acquaintance, since she had been with Jerry.
“You mean—that you have ‘made room for me in your mind’—now?”
“Why—yes. I didn’t know it, but I have. The reason I didn’t know it—was probably because I never think of you as a man. I think of you as a friend—who once was a friend indeed to me.”
He did not speak for a short space.
“There are very few girls whom I should care to have as friends. Most girls simply can’t achieve the atmosphere, the uncoloured give-and-take of friendship,—but I have always felt that you would be different.”
“Don’t put it all on the girl!” Joy laughed. “There are men with whom it is just as impossible to establish an—an uncoloured atmosphere.”