Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/109

 you must, or you wouldn't have been so decent to me that day in the woods. So where's the harm, please, if you let me see you now and then and talk to you? Why shouldn't we go to Martin's for tea; Martin's or any other place you suggest?"

She was silent a moment. Then she raised her eyes and looked at him with a little smile trembling about her lips. "And this friendship," she asked, "how does it end?"

"Friendship doesn't end," he answered.

"And how will you explain to your friends when they see us having tea together at Martin's?"

"There is no explanation necessary. Is it an unusual thing for a chap to take a lady to tea?"

"And if they ask my name, who I am?"

"I shall tell them. But you're making a mountain"

"And if any one who knows me asks who you are—no, they wouldn't do that, for they'd know. But if they asked why I was with you?"

"You'd tell them because I was your friend."

"Yes." She smiled ironically. "They'd be quite willing to believe that without my telling them."