Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/378

 She looked up at him again, and met his gaze without hesitation.

"And you are the man who saved the Republic of Locombia from—well, you know what from!"

He threw up his hand with a gesture of protest.

"I was thinking hanged little about the Republic of Locombia," he retorted, with his cheery and companionable laugh. "I wanted to get you out of that Ganley mess.”

"Then you saved me," she protested.

"When I happened as a primary consideration to be fighting to save my own precious neck!" he deprecated.

He noticed the silent reproof in her eyes, and as he saw it a new courage began to grope upward out of the darkness of his heart. He thought, a little enviously, of the days when she had been so close to him, when the arm of no intervening convention had stretched out between them. Then he thought of the blood and dust and grime of his battle, of the blood and dust and grime that lay over so many of his years. And all his life suddenly seemed an empty and aimless and wasted life to him. It seemed an affront to her, even to tell her how unworthy he was, yet the growing hunger and ache in his heart forbade him to keep silent. He watched