“Oh—really! May I—If you would—of course I know that—but my friends call me Rocky. The whole thing is Rockingham Bruce Kane. But....”
“I'll call you Misser Kane,” said she.
His face fell a very little; but quickly he recovered himself.
“You must have wondered—I suppose it seems as if I've done a rather crazy thing—it must seem so...” She murmured, “Oh, no!”
“Attaching myself to your party this way—-at such a difficult time. I know it was a pretty impulsive thing to do, but....”
His voice trailed into silence. For a brief moment this wild act seemed, however different in its significance to himself, of a piece with his other wild acts. It was, perhaps, like all those, merely ungoverned egotism. Her voice broke sweetly in on this moment of gloomy reverie.
“We know tha' you woul' help us if you coul'. An' you were so won'erful.”
“If I only could help! You see when I spoke that way to you—I mean telling you I loved you—”
“Please! We won' talk abou' tha'.”
“No. We won't. Except just this. I was beside myself. But even then, or pretty soon afterward, I knew it was just plain selfishness.”