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 FLAMING

YOUTH

825

‘What about Cary Scott?” The look with which she faced him did not waver. “Well, what about him?’ “He’s coming back.” “Coming back? Here?” Still her eyes were steady, but there was the faintest catch in her breathing. ‘Well, no; he isn’t. I just said that as an experiment. Though, of course, he might come if you wanted him. You do want him, don’t you, Pat dear?”

“Sometimes. Other times I don’t. How did you know?” “When you’ve nothing to do but think,” he explained, “vou get tired of thinking about yourself by and by and

begin to think about other people.

I’ve been thinking a

lot about you since we got to be pals.” “You’re a dear, Jimmie-jams.”

“I’m an old crab. But I’m was good to me, too, when I was think hard enough about people to see things about them, even

fond of you. And Scott first laid up. When you you’re fond of you begin things they may not see,

themselves.” “Even things that maybe aren’t there at all,” she mocked. “This is there,” he asseverated. ‘“There’s no use your pretending. When we talk I’m always catching echoes of Scott’s influence in what you say. You’re a different Pat from what you were before you knew him. I don’t

think you get on so well with yourself.” “You are clever, Jimmie.

I don’t.

And it makes me

furious.” “At him?” “Yes. I don’t know. At myself, too.” “JT had a letter from him last week. We’ve carried on a desultory correspondence since he left.”

Pat’s eyes livened.

“What does he say about me?”