Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/32

 "Suppose you did know me?" she asked.

"Why, then—we could be friends, couldn't we?"

"Do you really think so?" she asked mockingly. "Do you think a girl who earns her living—for that is what I do, Mr. Ames—can afford to have Grordon Ames for a friend?"

"I don't see why not," he said stubbornly.

"But I think you do see," she smiled. "I must go. Good-by—and thank you."

"Wait!" He laid a hand on the bridle. "I can't have it end this way. I— Why, I'm more than half in love with you, girl, whoever you are! Doesn't that mean a little to you? Can't you be a little bit kind?"

"Do you think—that's a good reason—for being kind to you? " she asked slowly, the color creeping into her cheeks, but her eyes meeting his quite steadily.

"I certainly do! Hang it, girl, surely you're not one of those narrow Puritans who think that just because a chap has money and belongs to what they call the 'swell set,' he's a—brute and a bounder! Why in Heaven's name shouldn't we be friends? Besides, you—you're not"