"Wasted?" echoed Helmsley, gently—"Do you think love is ever wasted?"
Her eyes grew serious and dreamy.
"Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't"—she answered—"When I begin to like a person very much I often pull myself back and say 'Take care! Perhaps he doesn't like you!'"
"Oh! The person must be a 'he' then!" said Helmsley, smiling a little.
She coloured.
"Oh no—not exactly!—but I mean,—now, for instance,"—and she spoke rapidly as though to cover some deeper feeling—"I like you very much—indeed I'm fond of you, David!—I've got to know you so well, and to understand all your ways—but I can't be sure that you like me as much as I like you, can I?"
He looked at her kind and noble face with eyes full of tenderness and gratitude.
"If you can be sure of anything, you can be sure of that!"—he said—"To say I 'like' you would be a poor way of expressing myself. I owe my very life to you—and though I am only an old poor man, I would say I loved you if I dared!"
She smiled—and her whole face shone with the reflected sunshine of her soul.
"Say it, David dear! Do say it! I should like to hear it!"