Helmsley raised his wrinkled, trembling hand.
"No, don't say that!" he murmured, gently—"Nothing—nothing in all the world is better than love!"
Involuntarily his eyes turned towards Mary with a strange wistfulness. There was an unspoken yearning in his face that was almost pain. Her quick instinctive sympathy responded to his thought, and rising, she went to him on the pretext of re-arranging the cushion in his chair, so that he might lean back more comfortably. Then she took his hand and patted it kindly.
"You're a sentimental old boy, aren't you, David!" she said, playfully—"You like being taken care of and fussed over! Of course you do! Was there ever a man that didn't!"
He was silent, but he pressed her caressing hand gratefully.
"No one has ever taken care of or fussed over me," said Reay—"I should rather like to try the experiment!"
Mary laughed good-humouredly.
"You must find yourself a wife,"—she said—"And then you'll see how you like it."
"But wives don't make any fuss over their husbands it seems to me," replied Reay—"At any rate in London, where I have lived for the past five years—husbands seem to be the last persons in the world whom their wives consider. I don't think I shall ever marry."
"I'm sure I shan't,"—said Mary, smiling—and as she spoke, she bent over the fire, and threw a fresh log of wood on to keep up the bright glow which was all that illuminated the room, from which almost every pale glimmer of the twilight had now departed—"I'm an old maid. But I was an engaged girl once!"