His kind-heartedness seriously perturbed, he stopped in front of her.
"Don't you remember the agreement?"
"Did you really mean it? I'd be awfully glad to have you for a pal. You always strike me as being so awfully dependable and—and strong."
Nicholas, unconsciously accepting her transition from the first person plural to the third person singular, threw out his chest with the old, satisfied gesture.
"It's very nice of you to feel that. I think I am to be depended on, Miss Dickenson, where my friends are concerned, and I'm very glad you feel that. Very glad. As for strength—well, I'm certainly not a weak man."
He laughed a little, very much pleased, as is a man who meets with reassurance upon a point about which he is sometimes secretly dubious.
"My shoulders are quite broad enough to bear your troubles as well as my own, I think, don't you?"
"Yes, I do. Rather. But it seems a shame——"
"Why? You know I'm interested in anything that concerns you. Of course I am."
His candid, solicitous eyes were fixed upon her opaque, unrevealing gaze.