"If they wish.... I can't—can't talk of it yet, unless I'm driven to it—"
He looked quietly around at her. "What drives you, Shiela?"
Her eyes remained resolutely fixed on the road ahead, but her cheeks were flaming; and he turned his gaze elsewhere, thoughtful, chary of speech, until at last the lights of the station twinkled in the north.
Then he said, carelessly friendly: "I'll just say this: that, being of no legitimate use to anybody, if you find any use for me, you merely need to say so."
"Thank you, Louis."
"No; I thank you! It's a new sensation—to be of legitimate use to anybody. Really, I'm much obliged."
"Don't speak so bitterly—"
"Not at all. Short of being celestially translated and sinlessly melodious on my pianola up aloft, I had no hope of ever being useful to you and Hamil—"
She turned a miserable and colourless face to his and he ceased, startled at the tragedy in such young eyes.
Then he burst out impulsively: "Oh, why don't you cut and run with him! Why, you little ninny, if I loved anybody like that I'd not worry over the morals of it!"