The girl’s face quivered with distress, and the tears sprang to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
“Half starved!” she repeated in a heartbroken voice. “Oh, Dick!”
John Thurley stared at her in attentive silence for a few moments. Then he said drily:
“You are sure you don’t know what falling in love is?”
Freda blushed, and began to dry her eyes.
“I know what it is,” she answered meekly, “to be sorry for a starving man.”
“And you haven’t a word for the man who is starving for the love of you?”
There was some passion in his voice now. Freda’s breath came quickly; she bent her head in deep thought, and presently raised it to show a face full of excitement, doubt, and entreaty.
“Do you love me enough to do something for my sake? something great, something difficult?”
John Thurley was a practical man, who liked to keep fact and sentiment well apart. A shade of caution came into his tone at once.