“Because I like you. I don’t know why I don’t say love you,” his handsome face flushing, “but you’re not the sort to say that to unless a chap has earned the right. How a pair of eyes can change everything one has made up his mind to say!”
“I’ll cover them with my hands,” she teased.
“No, they’d shine through at me—true blue always does. So I’ll just say like—and make you admit you return the sentiment. If it’s only liking each other, Thurley, there’s no harm!”
“I like you, but I don’t approve of you,” she admitted, “and I’d rather you didn’t come to see me when you ought to be with Lissa.”
“If she had some one she liked better than me, she would not remember such a word as loyalty,” he began impulsively.
“No fair—run along and do take some exercises. You look aldermanic.”
Reluctantly, he rose. “Why see every stray female from nowhere? I used to when I took life and art seriously. It grew to be a bore and I never see any one now. Even if the Jap does steal more than his wages, I keep him because he knows how never to open the door for any one but the laundry and the liquor agents.”
“I see them because it is a novelty, as people see me because I am one,” she said soberly. “Some day the people and I will stop both customs.... Good-by, Mark—my apologies to Lissa and I shall see her soon.”
Hortense Quinby proved to be a “hysterical hiker”—one concluded that from her pale, rather quick face and over-severe mode of hair-dressing. She had an untrimmed floppy hat, a bright green walking suit that had seen better days and a severe, gentlemanly cravat throttling her chin. There was an attempt to have a professional air by carrying a leather portfolio, but one could not have told whether she was a travelling manicure or secretary to a professor on Egyptology!
She was not a young woman nor was she middle-aged; perhaps the look of discontent in her dark eyes shadowed her really admirable features. She lost no time in making her wants known; one could see that she had been met with many rebuffs in similar situations and so, like the door to door canvasser she had learned to say the most in the least time!