Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/99

Rh known he wouldn't. She had known he wouldn't say, 'Then sup with me!' but the proof of it made her feel as if she had feasted.

'I'm not a bit hungry,' she went on.

'Ah, you must be, awfully!' he made answer, but settling himself on the bench as if, after all, that needn't interfere with his spending his evening. 'I've always quite wanted the chance to thank you for the trouble you so often take for me.'

'Yes, I know,' she replied; uttering the words with a sense of the situation far deeper than any pretence of not fitting his allusion. She immediately saw that he was surprised and even a little puzzled at her frank assent; but, for herself, the trouble she had taken could only, in these fleeting minutes—they would probably never come back—be all there like a little hoard of gold in her lap. Certainly he might look at it, handle it, take up the pieces. Yet if he understood anything he must understand all. 'I consider you've already immensely thanked me.' The horror was back upon her of having seemed to hang about for some reward. 'It's awfully odd