"And Laura?" he repeated the name for she had broken off quickly after having uttered it.
"Oh, Laura is very much in love, it seems. I don't believe she herself knows exactly why—but then one never does."
"Well, let's wish them happiness with all our hearts," he said, and added a little wistfully, "If it could only come by wishing."
"Ah, if it could!" was Gerty's plaintive echo; then her voice dropped into a sigh of perplexity, and she leaned toward him in a flattering confidential manner. "Do you know there are some men who are cads only in their relations to women," she observed; "leave out that element from their make-up and they're all round first-rate fellows."
"I dare say you're right," he answered, and thought of Perry Bridewell, "but why do you select this instant," he added humorously, "to formulate your philosophy of sex?"
Her earnestness fled and she leaned back in her chair laughing. "Oh, I don't know—perhaps—because one doesn't like to lose an aphorism even if it pops into one's head at the wrong time."
Then as he rose to go she pressed his hand with a grip that was almost boyish. "How I wish you liked me half as much as I like you," she said.
"I do—I shall always," he responded in his whimsical manner. "There's absolutely no limit to my liking—only I know it would be the surest way to bore you to death."
She laughed a little wearily. "It would be so nice to be really liked," she pursued. "Nobody likes me. A good many have loved me in one way or another, but I want to be just liked."
He saw the pathetic little frown gather between her brows, and in spite of the pain in his own heart, he felt a profound and pitiful sympathy. "Well, we'll make a compact upon it," he declared, holding her hand for an instant in his hearty grasp. "I promise to like you until you tell me frankly that you're bored."