Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/196

 "Well, it hurts me to hear you talk as if nothing matters, as if life"

"'Life is a watch and a vision, between a sleep and a sleep?'" he quoted.

"Yes; but Swinburne meant it beautifully, not as something to be got rid of. When I was a kiddie," she continued inconsequently, "I used to tear my pinnies when anybody offended me."

"And you regard me as wanting to tear my pinny," he continued gravely.

She nodded, with a flicker of a smile. "You're not cross with me?" She looked at him anxiously.

Why not end it by telling her everything. Instead he heard himself saying:

"I suppose it was really self-pity that made me sorry for that girl with the ankles."

"I once read somewhere," she said gravely, looking him straight in the eyes, "that we are all of us influenced to some degree by every one we meet. I wish" she stopped.

"You wish that you could influence me to turn over a new leaf and become a sort of New Year resolution."

She looked at him reproachfully.

"It's easy for a woman to preach the gospel of content, particularly when she has all that makes for content. You would probably suggest the colonies, or America, thinking of The Silver King or Andrew Carnegie, or"

"Please don't, you are hurting me."

Both the words and the tone were so simple that