She laid her hands over her face, standing so, golden head lowered and her heart so violent that she could scarcely breathe.
"Jacqueline."
A scarcely perceptible movement of her head, in sign that she listened.
"Are we going to let anything frighten us?" He had not meant to say that, either. He was adrift, knew it, and meant to drop anchor in a moment. "Tell me honestly," he added, "don't you want us to be friends?"
She said, her hands still over her face:
"I didn't know how much I wanted it. I don't see, even now, how it can be. Your own friends are different. But I'll try—if you wish it."
"I do wish it. Why do you think my friends are so different from you? Because some happen to be fashionable and wealthy and idle? Besides, a man has many different kinds of friends——"
She thought to herself: "But he never forgets to distinguish between them. And here it is at last—almost. And I—I do care for him! And here I am—like Cynthia—asking myself to pardon him."
She looked up at him out of her hands, a little pale, then down at his arm, resting loosely around her waist.
"Don't hold me so, please," she said, in a low voice.