"What! Is that quite accurate?"
"Oh, quite. Of course, Mr. Jenks, I can never forget how much I owe to you. I like you immensely, too, although you are so—so gruff to me at times. But—but—you see, my father and I have always been together. I have neither brother nor sister, not even a cousin. My dear mother died from some horrid fever when I was quite a little girl. My father is everything to me."
"Dear child!" he murmured, apparently uttering his thoughts aloud rather than addressing her directly. "So you find me gruff, eh?"
"A regular bear, when you lecture me. But that is only occasionally. You can be very nice when you like, when you forget your past troubles. And pray, why do you call me a child?
"Have I done so?"
"Not a moment ago. How old are you, Mr. Jenks? I am twenty—twenty last December."
"And I," he said, "will be twenty-eight in August."
"Good gracious!" she gasped. "I am very sorry, but I really thought you were forty at least."
"I look it, no doubt. Let me be equally candid and admit that you, too, show your age markedly."
She smiled nervously. "What a lot of trouble you must have had to—to—to give you those little wrinkles in the corners of your mouth and eyes," she said.