She smiled faintly. “Oh no. I shall be all right. It’s just—the heat.”
“It’s nothing of the kind,” he returned. “It’s overwork, and you know it. You’ll either kill yourself or go stark staring mad if you keep on.”
She laughed again at that, and though faint, her laughter had a ring of indomitable resolution. “Oh, indeed I shall not. I know exactly what my capabilities are. I have been unlucky to-day, but I am in reality much stronger than I seem.”
He turned from her with the hint of a shrug. “No doubt you know your own business best, and of course I fully recognise that it is no part of mine to give advice.”
“Oh, please!” she said gently.
That was all; but spoken in a tone that brought him back to her with a sharp turn. He looked at her, and was amazed at himself because the faint smile in her tired eyes gave him a new sensation.
“Wasn’t that what you meant?” he said, after a moment.
“No,” she made quiet answer. “I never mean that to the people who show me kindness. It happens—much too seldom.”
She spoke with a dignity that was above pathos, but none the less was he touched. It was as if she had lifted the official mask to give him a glimpse of her soul, and in that glimpse he beheld something which he certainly had not expected to see. Again, almost against his will, was he stirred to a curious reverence.
“You must have had a pretty rotten time of it,” he said.