“Thessa is managing it,” he said. “It looks like a lot of expense, but it isn’t. Don’t worry about it, Sweetness.”
“I do worry——”
“Now, what a ridiculous thing to do!” he interrupted. “It’s merely advanced salary—your own money. I told you to blow it; I’m responsible. And I shall arrange it so you won’t notice that you are repaying the loan. All I want you to do is to have a good time about it.”
“I am having a good time—when it doesn’t scare me to spend so much for——”
“Can’t you trust Thessa and me?”
The girl dropped to her knees beside his chair in a swift passion of gratitude:
“Oh, I trust you—I do——” But she could not utter another word, and only pressed her face against his arm in the tense silence of emotions which were too powerful to express, too deep and keen to comprehend or to endure.
And she sprang to her feet, flushed, confused, turning from him as he retained one hand and drew her back:
“Dear child,” he said, in his pleasant voice, “this is really a very little thing I do for you, compared to the help you have given me by hard, unremitting, uncomplaining physical labour and endurance. There is no harder work than holding a pose for painter or 235 sculptor—nothing more cruelly fatiguing. Add to that your cheerfulness, your willingness, your quiet, loyal, unobtrusive companionship—and the freshness and inspiration and interest ever new which you always awake in me—tell me, Sweetness, are you really in my debt, or am I in yours?”
“I am in yours. You made me.”