Suddenly she
seemed to emerge to her own consciousness, upon a summit from which she
could look down upon the turmoil in herself and beyond it, to where he
stood.
"Don't make a mistake," she said, "don't." She thrust her hand for a
fraction of an instant toward him, and then swiftly withdrew it,
gathering herself together to meet what he might say.
What he did say was simple, and easy to hear. "That's what everybody
will tell me; but I thought you might understand." He tapped the toe of
his boot with his stick as if he counted the strokes. She looked down
and counted them too.
"Then you won't help me to marry her," he said definitely, at last.
"What could I do?" She twisted her sapphire ring. "Ask somebody else."
"Don't expect me to believe there is nothing you could do. Go to her as
my friend. It isn't such a monstrous thing to ask. Tell her any good you
know of me. At present her imagination paints me in all the lurid
colours of the lost."
The face she turned upon him was all little sharp white angles, and the
cloud of fair hair above her temples stood out stiffly, suggesting
Celine and the curling tongs. She did not lose her elegance; the poise
of her chin and shoulders was quite perfect, but he thought she looked
too amusedly at his difficulty.
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