She stiffened. “I don't think there is the slightest danger, Mr. Percival.”
“I wasn't thinking of danger,” he said. “There is a lot of difference between danger and consequences. You see, you might have been mistaken in your man. I might have turned out to be Manuel Crust.”
“I—I—I was sure it was you,” she stammered, and wished she had not said it. It was a confession that she knew his figure so well that she could recognize it in the gloom of the night and at a distance that should have rendered him almost invisible.
“Even so, I am Manuel's brother under the skin,” he said. “Like Judy O'Grady and the Colonel's lady, you know. However, all's well that ends well, so what's the use of magnifying the peril that stalks through the land.”
“You were brought up on the good, old-fashioned novels, I see. That's the language of heroes,—and heroes live only in novels, where they are perfectly safe from harm, thanks to the benevolent author.”
“You're right. I was brought up among the old-fashioned heroes. I lived through every adventure they had, I longed for every girl they loved, I envied everything they did, and I dreamed the most beautiful dreams about prowess and virtue and love. I rather fancy I'm a better man for having been a swashbuckling boy. I acquired the generous habit of falling in love with every heroine I read about, and in my thoughts I performed even more prodigious deeds of valour in her behalf than the hero to whom she inevitably plighted her troth in the final chapter. In real life, however, I've never been in a position to do anything more heroic than give up my seat in trolley-cars to ladies of all ages,—By the way, have you never longed desperately to be a heroine?”
“Of course, I have,” she cried, smiling in spite of herself. Her eyes were sparkling again, for the danger was past. “And I have loved a hundred heroes,—madly.” She hesitated and then went on impulsively: “We haven't been very friendly, Mr. Percival. Perhaps I am to blame. In any case, you have been very generous and forbearing. That is more than I have been. I never thought I could bring myself to the point of saying this to you. Can't we be friends again?”
He was silent for a moment.
“Do you mean to go back to where we were before—Well, before we clashed?”
“Yes,—if you will put it in that way.”