Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/135

Rh was being done merely in the way of a professional duty for which he would be duly paid. But they had been friends once, and she had treated him, she remembered, rather rottenly of late. She wanted to say something about that, make some effort to explain it away, yet she didn't quite know how to get that belated mood of repentance into words.

So, as she rose from her chair, she didn't even try to put it into words. She merely smiled softly and gratefully up into Gerry's eyes as he stood beside her, with the magnolia-white of her cheeks tinging into pink as he stared back at her, with his jaw-muscles set and a quick look of pain on the face that still remained pre-occupied.

"It's—it's awfully good of you, Gerry," she said as she held out her hand to him.

"That's how I make my living," was Gerry's unexpectedly brusk reply. But, apparently without knowing it, he still held her hand in his.

"It's awfully, awfully good of you," she