Horace looked meditatively at her, with softening eyes. “You’re the best of the lot, dear old Jess,” he said at last, smiling candidly. “Truly I’m glad you came—gladder than I can tell you. I was in the very slough of despond when you entered; and now—well, at least I’m going to play that I am out of it.”
Jessica rose with a beaming countenance, and laid her hand frankly on his shoulder. “I’m glad I came, too,” she said. “And very soon I want to see you again—when you are quite free—and have a long, quiet talk.”
“All right, my girl,” he answered, rising as well. The prospect seemed entirely attractive to him. He took her hand in his, and said again: “All right. And must you go now?”
“Oh, mercy, yes!” she exclaimed, with sudden recollection. “I had no business to stay so long! Perhaps you can tell me—or no—” She vaguely put together in her mind the facts that Tracy and Horace had been partners, and seemed to be so no longer. “No, you wouldn’t know.”
“Have I so poor a legal reputation as all that?” he said, lightly smiling. “Hang it all! One’s friends, at least, ought to dissemble their bad opinions.”
“No, it wasn’t about law,” she explained, stum-blingly. “It’s of no importance. I must hurry now. Good-by for the time.”
He would have drawn her to him and kissed her at this, but she gently prevented the caress, and released herself from his hands.
“Not that,” she said, with a smile in which still some sadness lingered. “I would rather not that. It is better so. And—good-by, Horace, for the time.”
He went with her to the door, lighting the hall gas that she might see her way down the stairs. When she had disappeared, he walked for a little up and down the room, whistling softly to himself. It was undeniable that the world seemed vastly brighter to him than it had only a half-hour before. Mere contact with somebody who liked him for himself was a refreshing novelty.
“A damned decent sort of girl—considering everything!” he mused aloud, as he locked up his desk for the day.