"It's the same thing, I suppose. I lose courage sometimes. I get tired of trying to like to do things I never really can like."
"I understand," he said gently. "Mr. Radbourne told me about you. Will you let me say, I am very sorry?"
She started, as if she had forgotten herself, and flushed deeply in her contrition.
"There! I'm perfectly nonsensical, letting myself be a cry-baby just when I'd intended— It isn't my habit at all. There's nothing really to be sorry for. If you give any work your best and put your heart into it, you'll get—",
"A great deal of happiness out of it," David finished dryly. "Exactly! I recognize the formula. Also its author. I think you're just whistling to keep up your courage now."
"But that isn't a bad thing at all to do. Why—" She turned to face him, with a little gasp for her daring. "Why don't you try it?"
It was his turn to grow red. "You think I'd be more cheerful company?"
"I think," she said, with a pretty gravity, "you make too much of being a—lame duck. And I think that isn't like you."
"How do you know whether it's like me or not?"
"That," she laughed to cover her discomfiture, "is an embarrassing question. But I do think it."