“Oh! I hurt you, dearest?”
“Yes,” she said; though he had not. And remorsefully and with anxious endearments, he let her go.
“You’ve heard about Charles?” he asked.
“I’ve just come from him.”
“He’s—the same?”
“Yes.”
She stood gasping against the wall of a building, entirely in the shadow herself, with the little light which reached them showing her his face. Ruth liked that face; and she liked the girl whom she played at being—that Cynthia whose identity she was carrying on, but about whom she yet knew so little—for having loved this man. George Byrne had been clean-living; he was strong and eager, but gentle, too. He had high thoughts and resolute ideals. These he had told her in those letters which had come; but Ruth had not embodied them in him till now. She was recovering from the offense of having anyone’s arms but Gerry’s about her. She was not conscious of thinking of Gerry that way; only, his arms had been about her, he had held her; and, because of that, what she had just undergone had been more difficult to bear.
“I love you; you love me, Cynthia?” Byrne was begging of her now.
“Of course I do,” she said.
“There’s not someone else, then? Tell me, Cynthia!”