“Well, and was I not kind?”
“You were! And I want you to be kind to me now!”
She looked at him half-timidly, half-warningly.
“And am I not so?”
“You are—you are!” and the erudite Walter Craig, F.S.A., became all at once confused, and felt an extraordinary furnace-like heat flushing his face. “But—but—but not quite kind enough! I want you to be kinder—I want you to—to—”
She dropped her embroidery suddenly, and rising came over to him in the prettiest way imaginable and knelt beside him like a child asking a favour.
“I know—I know!” she said, softly and coaxingly. “But don’t say what you want!—like a good, kind man, don’t say it!”
His eyes opened wide in amazement. He stooped towards her and took her hand in his own.
“Don’t say it?” he echoed. “Why—why shouldn’t I say it?”
Her sweet face lightened with an expression of tenderness, regret and sympathy all commingled.