"Well," she said, after a little silence, "I don't suppose you're needed very much."
"That's what the business men are saying," he told her, sarcasm in his dry tone.
"I don't mean it that way," she hastened to amend. "You've done us a great service—we'll never be able to pay you——"
"There isn't any pay involved," he interposed, almost roughly. "That's what's worrying those nits around the square, they say they can't carry a marshal's pay with business going to the devil since the town's closed. Somebody ought to tell them. There never will be any bill."
"You're too generous," she said, a little spontaneous warmth in her voice.
"Maybe I can live it down," he returned.
"It's such a lovely cool night I couldn't stay in," she chatted on, still laboring to be natural and at ease, not deceiving him by her constraint at all, "after such a hard day fussing with that old paper. We missed an issue the week—last week—we're getting out two in one this time. Why haven't you been in? you seem to be in such a hurry always."
"I wanted to spare you what you can't see in the dark," he said, the vindictive spirit of Ascalon's insanity upon him.
"What I can't see in the dark?" she repeated, as if perplexed.