“Thank you,” he said, and her gayety seemed to turn him graver. “Miss Clementina, might I go a little further in this direction, without danger?”
“What direction?” she added, with a flush of sudden alarm.
“Mrs. Lander.”
“Why, suttainly!” she answered, in quick relief.
“I wish you'd let me do some of the worrying about her for you, while I'm here. You know I haven't got anything else to do!”
“Why, I don't believe I worry much. I'm afraid I fo'get about her when I'm not with her. That's the wo'st of it.”
“No, no,” he entreated, “that's the best of it. But I want to do the worrying for you even when you're with her. Will you let me?”
“Why, if you want to so very much.”
“Then it's settled,” he said, dismissing the subject.
But she recurred to it with a lingering compunction.