“But—wouldn’t it be possible to do something else? Couldn’t you lease it?”
“We might, but that would only be putting off the inevitable. I reckon you don’t know how poor we are, Mr. North,” she said with a little troubled smile. “I think I’d like to tell you. Even mamma doesn’t know—quite.”
“I shall feel honoured, Miss Ryerson,” he answered earnestly. “But if it—well, if it hurts to talk about it, please don’t.”
“I think it would do me good to tell some one,” she answered gravely. “And since we’ve already made a sort of—family counselor of you, Mr. North, I know you won’t mind playing the part of a father confessor, too. Your kindness to Phil and to us——”
“Please don’t say anything more about that, Miss Ryerson,” John pleaded. “I feel like a hypocrite whenever you mention my services. If you only knew how very little I’ve done—scarcely anything, really—and what a pleasure that little has been, you’d understand that all the obligation is on my part.”
Margaret shook her head again as one unconvinced.
“I won’t speak of it if you don’t wish it,” she said softly, “but I shall always remember it and shall always be very, very grateful.” She turned away from him, clasped her hands over one knee and looked off across the sloping lawn and meadow. Then: “I fear, though, you don’t believe very strongly in our—in my gratitude after—after my rudeness to you.” Her head was turned farther away until he could see only one cheek, on which the colour came and went as she spoke.
“Rudeness!” he exclaimed. “Great heavens, please don’t say that! You weren’t rude enough! You——”
“I behaved very childishly,” she continued, without, however, turning toward him. “I want to ask your pardon and I want you to know that—that my behaviour didn’t mean that I wasn’t grateful to you all the time. We—we’re rather barbarians down here, Mr. North, and have tempers!”
“Miss Ryerson! Margaret! I beg your pardon,” he caught himself up. “But please don’t talk about asking my pardon. I ought to have asked yours long ago! I do now! I behaved like a brute that day. I know I did. But—but won’t you please believe that I didn’t mean any disrespect? You must believe that! Won’t you?”