“Well, you might have thought it,” she said, with a despairing note; “but you didn’t because you’re my good friend and a gentleman.”
He was so astounded by her unsparing self-condemnation that he almost missed this heart-warming praise. She hurried on with the story, tears filling her eyes. It was an undreamed-of thing that he should see his divinity weep. For the first time in his life he felt that he, too, was capable of tears. But he must restore her equanimity, and before she concluded he had decided to pass the whole thing off as a joke.
“Forget it, Nan! You never really meant to do it, anyhow. If Cecil hadn’t turned up, it’s a safe bet you’d have weakened before you got into the boss’s machine. It was a good joke—on the boss; that’s all I see in it. Come on, now, and give a merry ha-ha. The only sad thing about it is that it put the boss on the blink all day. If he’d been a real sport he wouldn’t have let you escape so easy; looks as though he wasn’t exactly crazy about it himself!”
“Oh, you think he wasn’t!” she flared.
“I thought I’d get a rise out of you with that! Take it from me, if I’d framed up a thing like that I’d ’ve pulled up large shade trees and upset tall buildings putting it over. But all you’ve got to do is to charge it up to profit and loss. Hereafter you’d better not make any engagements without seeing me,” he concluded daringly.
“There may be something in that,” she laughed. “I’m glad I told you, Jerry. It helps a lot to tell your troubles to some one—and you don’t think much worse of me?”
“Oh, too much sympathy wouldn’t be good for you!” he said, looking at her fixedly. “Your trouble is, Nan, if you will take it from an old friend, that you’ve had too soft a time. You need a jar or two to make you watch the corners. So do I; so does everybody! When things come easy for me I get nervous. I’ve got to have something to fight; but I don’t mean punching heads; not any more. Cecil says his great aim in life is to teach me to fight with my brains instead of my fists and feet. But it’s hard work, considering the number of heads there are that need punching.”
She was touched by his anxiety to serve her, to see her always in the best possible light. He was a comforting person, this Jerry. His philosophy was much sounder than her own; he was infinitely wiser. He had done much better with his life than she had with hers, and the advantages had been so immensely in her favor! There was no one else in the world, she reflected, to whom she could confide as in him. She marveled that she trusted him so implicitly—and he knew how little she merited trust! A sudden impulse carried her across the room to where he stood fingering a book.
“You are very good to me, Jerry!” she said with deep feeling.
Her hand touched his—a light, caressing stroke; then she sprang away from him, abashed. The color mounted to his face, and he thrust the hand awkwardly into his pocket. The touch of her hand had thrilled him; a wave of tenderness swept him.