“Oh, I know. You’re sure to duck compliments; all the same, you saved little Jack’s useless life.”
“You would have drifted in——”
“Not possibly. The wind cut straight for the falls, and queer thing—say, Glo,” she broke off, “sit down, do. Right here beside the bed. I’m all set for a lot of whispering.”
This was Jack. She smiled the twisted little quirk that pinched from the corners of her mouth, and her gray eyes showed some worth while glints in spite of the doctor’s prescriptions.
“But a canoe is a safe floater, after all,” insisted the modest Gloria. “You might even——”
“Have gone over the falls, and landed right side up with care. Hardly. However, I knew you were there, I almost knew you were coming, that is, I could feel rescue, and who, other than Gloria, would have come, so promptly?”
Gloria slipped into the chair with an air of passivity. She was not pretending to be modest, she felt foolish against the batter of a compliment as if it pricked her sense of duty, for, she reasoned, who would not have gone after that canoe just as she had done, if they felt as secure in the water as she always felt?
“And that icy cold!” again Jack recalled.
“I’ve often done it in winter, just to show off.”
Jack beamed. Her admiration was no more pretense than was Gloria’s modesty. The buttercup boudoir cap looked “sweet,” on Jack, and her gray eyes were beginning to reflect the return of strength.