“Ill! No,” he replies. “I am not ill, thank you, Miss Jess,” he says, at length, and he laughs a little, forced laugh, as she stands and looks at him in wonder, her arms having fallen at her side.
She is dimly conscious that she has made herself ridiculous in his eyes by her solicitude, and that her impulsive action throwing her arms about him had greatly offended him, and she wondered vaguely, as she stands before him covered with confusion, how she ever dared do it.
CHAPTER XXIV.
ONLY AN IMPULSIVE CHILD.
Mr. Moore looks at the girl standing before him long and earnestly; then, reaching forward, he catches her hands in one of his own, asking, slowly:
“Why should it matter to you, little one, whether I was ill or well? Why should you care?”
“Because I like you so much,” answered the girl, unconscious of what her words implied. “I should not be quite happy unless you were happy, too.” And she looked up, with those frank, childish eyes of hers, directly into his face.
“Why do you like me, little Jess?” he queried, somewhat huskily.
“Because you have been so kind and gentle with me, and I am little used to either; and, then, you have never censured me, as I had every reason to believe you would do, for being the cause of you nearly losing your life. If you had let me drown, when it was in your power to do so, it would have been serving me exactly right, you know.”
He looked down into the childish face, with strange emotions throbbing in his breast. Of all people the world held, not one of them had ever told him, up to the present hour, that they liked him, or cared to see him happy. On the contrary, the great, cruel world had hustled him about sharply, and every one had been only too eager to trample him down, utterly regardless of his feelings, whether he was doomed to misery or not.
Long and earnestly he debated with himself as to whether he should tell her that he was John Dinsmore, instead of Mr. Moore, as she thought him, the hated being whom the elder Dinsmore had stipulated in that ridiculous will that she should wed, or lose a princely fortune.