"Nobody can help me." She shook her head gently. "I told you once, Mr. Thode, that I must play a lone hand."
"But you can trust me," he urged. "If I could only make you believe that! If I could only make you see how much it would mean to me to be of the slightest service——"
He halted abruptly, and she waited, scarcely breathing, for there was an impetuous fervent ring in his tones which made her heart leap suddenly and then almost cease to beat. But the young man did not continue.
"Thank you," she said at last, very quietly. "I am sure that I could trust you, Mr. Thode, but there is nothing you or anyone could do; it is just that I owe a debt to someone, and I mean to pay it. But don't let us talk of that any more. Shall I see you, sometime, up in New York?"
"Perhaps, when my work here is finished." He turned his head away from her. "You will have so many new friends that you will scarcely remember those you leave behind down here."
"How unjust you are!" She faced him hotly. "Do you think I could ever forget what you did when El Negrito came; how you rode to the barracks at the risk of your life?"
"I had small choice," he reminded her. "Had I stayed I would have been killed."
"So would we all. But it was not for yourself you took the chance, it was for us." She laid her hand upon his arm. "I—I don't want you to think that I will ever forget and I hope that we shall be friends."
"Always that!" He took her small hand in both of his. "It doesn't seem likely, but if there is ever anything that I can do for you, any service that I can render, I would like to feel, in spite of the little time you have known me, that you would call on me before anyone else you may meet. After all, Gentleman Geoff laid a charge upon me, you know, and I want to be worthy of it. When I return, if I may, I will come to you."
"Oh, will you?" She flushed and gently withdrew her hand. "That is, unless you will be ashamed of me. I reckon I'll be kind of a shock to city folks, the same as they'll be to me."