"Lucky!" he laughed briefly. "I knew that sooner or later you'd need me."
He stopped at that, but allowed her questions to elicit the fact that every afternoon he had followed her at a discreet distance, scrupulously respecting her privacy, but ready for the need that sooner or later must surely arrive. Nan was touched.
"You have no right to endanger yourself this way!" he cried, as though carried away. "It is not just to those who care for you!" and by the tone of his voice, the look of his eye, the slight emphasizing pressure of his hand he managed to convey to her, but in a manner to which she could not possibly object, his belief that his last phrase referred more to himself than to any one else in the world.
It was about this period that John Sherwood, dressing for dinner, remarked to his wife:
"Patsy, the more I see of you the more I admire you. Do you remember that Firemen's Ball when you started in to break up that Keith-Morrell affair? He dropped her so far that I haven't heard her plunk yet! I don't know what made me think of it—it was a long time ago."
"Yes, that was all right," she replied thoughtfully, "but I'm not as pleased as I might be with the Keith situation."
Sherwood stopped tying his cravat and turned to face her.
"He's perfectly straight, I assure you," he said earnestly. "I don't believe he knows that any other woman but his wife exists. I know that. But I wish he'd go a little easier with the men."
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of him. She's the culprit now."
"What!" cried Sherwood, astonished, "that little innocent baby!"