“But I haven’t given orders, Mr. Sidney.”
“You have. They’re orders to me. The littlest thing you can wish for is orders to me. If you said for me to cut my hand off I’d do it. Oh, you don’t know! I have—I don’t know how to say it—but for years—oh, I’m crazy—” And I was. It was lunacy provoked by the passion of love trying to outvoice those devilish shotes.
By the funny look she gave me she was taking me at my word. She hurried to step into her little chaise.
“All I mean is this,” I quavered. “I’ll make ’em quit. You look to me. I’ll be responsible. Don’t you worry.”
“I’m sure everything will be all right after this,” she told me. “I’ll depend on you, and I thank you.”
She went on her way, and the burden I had assumed seemed lighter than feathers and more precious than golden ingots.
She had given me her confidence—she had asked me for a service!
She had thought of me and my trouble when she was away at school!
A few minutes before I had not dreamed that she was conscious that such a person as Ross Sidney walked the earth.
Now, at all events, my poor self was in a little corner of her thoughts. She was looking to me for help in something which she had made her own concern.