“You don't have to do a thing.” She smiled up at him, and her old audacity was quite gone. “You've just got to be. And—you don't have to send me flowers, you know. I mean, I understand that you're sorry for me, without that. You're the only person in the world I'd allow to be sorry for me.”
He was touched. There was no coquetry in her manner. She paid her little tribute quite sincerely and frankly.
“I've been taking stock to-day,” she went on, “and I put you among my assets. One reliable gentleman, six feet tall, weight about a hundred and seventy, in good condition. Heavens, what a lot of liabilities you had to off-set!”
He stopped and looked down at her.
“Audrey dear,” he said, “what am I to say to all that? What can I do? How can I help?”
“You might tell me—No, that's silly.”
“What is silly?”
But she did not answer. She called “Joey!” and gave him her clubs.
“Joey wants to be a soldier,” she observed.
“So he says.”