Page:Georgie by Dorothea Deakin, 1906.djvu/31

"Plain Anne" He collapsed.

"Oh, Lord! You might help a chap, Martin, instead of jeering. I can't give Violet up. I can't."

"Then tell the truth to Drusilla instead. Explain about the rose-colored dance, and the rest of it."

Georgie flushed again. His skin, where the sun had not caught it, was as fair as a lily.

"I'd rather cut my throat," said he. "You don't know what it would mean to me to lose her. You don't know what that girl is to me."

I knew what she was to me and held my tongue; still diplomatic.

"She's the sweetest little thing on God's earth," said he, with flowery pathos, "and miles too good for me."

"Yes, I think she is. Does she?—is she fond of you, do you suppose?"

"Oh, Lord, yes," Georgie answered readily. "Anne says she worships the very ground I walk on. Keeps my photograph in her Tennyson and that sort of 15