Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/168

 "How could you? I mean that I—can't be taken for their sakes."

"I will take you for your own and mine," Terry answered.

"Then I will go, so thankfully, for as long or as short a time as you like. But no—one more thing. I'm not fit to be with you, because you are a kind of angel, and I—I am a very wicked girl. I think I must be the wickedest that ever lived in this world, and the unhappiest. Now you won't want to take me for my own sake, will you?"

"Yes, I will, just the same," said Terry, smiling the smile that made people love her. "How old are you, my poor little child?"

"Nineteen."

"Not twenty, yet already the wickedest and the unhappiest girl in the world! Well, I'm not afraid of you. I'll risk the wickedness, and try to make you a little happier."

"You don't believe me, Miss Ricardo."

"I believe you think yourself wicked."

"Would you think yourself wicked if you had sworn to a lie?"

Terry's pulses quickened a little. She could not help guessing at the girl's meaning, though she would rather not have guessed. She paused before answering, knowing that Nora's eyes were fixed upon her. It was a painful pause, though brief, for all the woman's