Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/64

 difficult time, and had paid the doctor's bills at home. And she knew how much honest devotion she had put into the task of trying to give helpful counsel.

"At any rate," she said, "it was through the column that we first met."

What evil divinity sat upon Arthur's tongue that he could not see this was the moment for a word of tenderness? But a young man flushed with his first vision of business success, the feeling that now nothing can prevent him from "making good," is likely to be obtuse to the finer shades of intercourse.

"Of course, dear, I could see you were different from the usual sob sister of the press," he said.

"I could see you didn't really fall for that stuff. It's because I love you so, I want to get you out of that cheap, degrading sensational work. Most of those letters you get are only fakes, anyway. I think Love ought to be sacred, not used as mere circulation bait for a newspaper."

Ann was a high-spirited girl, and this blunt criticism touched her in that vivid, quivering region of the mind where no woman stops to reason. But she made an honest attempt to be patient.

"But, Arthur," she said; "there's nothing really