“Don’t thank me, Jack. Promise me what I’ve asked. Will you promise me? On your honor, Jack?”
“Yes—I promise you. I give you my word of honor, Rose, I’ll do as you say.” He lifted her hand to his lips in gratefulness.
“Feel better?” she asked, smiling into his eyes.
“Better? Why, I feel ten years younger.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll trust you, Jack. You keep your promise to me, and I’ll keep mine. Don’t worry about the money.”
“But I do!” he cried, springing to his feet dramatically. “If I wasn’t so deuced short, Rose, I wouldn’t hear of it. One thing you’ve got to promise me—that you’ll consider it as a loan,” he insisted.
“I’m going to consider it as I please,” she returned, reaching for a cigarette. “Your yacht—my money—that’s fair, isn’t it?”
“As you please,” he said, with a helpless shrug. “As you please, madame,” he returned with a smile, and bowed.
He was his old debonair self again. He felt like a man who had been given a new lease of life. Rose had lifted him out of his anxiety. The woman who had persecuted him seemed harmless to him now.
Again he took his seat beside her on the divan.