“I—I—mean,” he corrected, stammeringly, “sorry to hurt your business.”
“You haven’t hurt my business! There’s room for both! It’s a fair competition.”
“It’s very forgiving of you to say so. But I said I’d start a coach-service and I had to make my word good, hadn’t I? A man can’t say a thing and leave it empty air.”
“No.” In her new humility she was prepared to admire such solid manhood.
“But that’s no reason why we should be bad friends, is it?”
She had thought that it was; now, that attitude of hers seemed childishly foolish. Self-abasement kept her dumb.
“No reason,” he repeated, mistaking her silence for obstinacy, “why we shouldn’t shake hands.”
“Only this glass,” she flashed more happily. But it shook in her hand.
“Ah!” He sighed with satisfaction. The way to his proposition lay open. He could broach it at once.
“Much better to pull together, eh?”