Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/181

Rh She remembered a time when she had thought that it was he, Dick, who might break his heart for her. The remembrance of that vain thought was a constant pin-prick to her vanity, a constant affront to her modesty. She had tried to snub him in those days—to show him that his hopes were vain. And after all he hadn't had any hopes: he'd only been anxious about Tom! In the desolation of her parting from Tom she had longed for sympathy. Dick had given it, and she had been kinder to him than she had ever been to any man but her lover—first, because he was her lover's friend, and, secondly, because she wanted to pretend to herself that she had never fancied that there was any reason for not being kind to him.

She sat down in the chair opposite to his. "Now," she said, "I won't thank you any more, if you hate it so; but you are good, and neither of us will ever forget it."

He sat silent for a moment. He had played for this—for this he had delayed to answer the letter wherein Tom announced his intention of telling Harriet the whole fair tale of his friend's goodness. He had won the trick. Yet for an