“Eh?”
“Why do you let speech blur the finer self, deep-hidden and begging for expression?”
“Very good! Very good!” he cried; “a hit! Do you know, Miss Jerry, I am having an extraordinary rush of conversation. I haven’t talked so much since I don’t know when. But here goes. Shop closed.”
For a minute or two they rocked gently with the steamer and cultivated the “unexpressed self.”
“Oh, see here!” he was the first to speak. “I can’t stop now. There is much to settle up yet.”
“Please don’t attempt to settle money matters on this boat,” she interrupted. “I don’t see now how you can ever pay me back without mother knowing; and I won’t have that now. Forget about it. You can pay in many other ways.”
Again they had a minute or two of silence.
“But there’s something else,” Mr. Richard insisted. “Where is this Walter brother of yours who took the—oh, I beg your pardon; he is the sick one, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Is he better?”