"Perhaps he said, 'God help her.'"
"Maybe he did," Willie sighed. "Anyway, we're to meet him in town to-morrow."
He stared at her with hungry eyes, and his little lean fingers crept toward the exquisite hand of hers that lay supine, relaxed, with upturned fingers like the petals of an open rose. He took that flower in his hands timidly. She looked down into his famished eyes and smiled pitifully—perhaps a little for him, certainly for herself.
He overestimated the tenderness in her gaze and squeezed her fingers in his. She winced and drew her hand away.
"I'm awfully sorry I hurt you," he said.
"It was this ring again," she explained, though she had not meant to say the "again."
"My ring? Our ring?" he murmured, with such joy that her sportsmanship compelled a last effort at playing fair.
"Under the circumstances," she said, "I think I'd better return it to you—with thanks for the loan."
"I don't want it back!" he gasped. "I won't have it back."
"You didn't agree to marry a beggar."