Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/230

220 Kitty's brain began to make preparations to alight, as it were. Cutty. That gave her a touch of earth. She heard herself say faintly: "And what about me?"

"You were brave and kind. To help an unknown, friendless beggar like that, when you should have turned him over to the police! Makes me feel a bit stuffy. They left me for dead. I wonder" "What?"

"If—it wouldn't have been just as well!" "You mustn't talk like that! You just mustn't! You're with friends, real friends, who want to help you all they can." And then with a little flash of forced humour, because of the recurrent tightening in her throat—"Who could be friendless, with all that money?" Instantly she felt like biting her tongue. He would know nothing of the sad American habit of trying to be funny to keep a wobbly situation on its legs. He would interpret it as heartlessness. "I didn't mean that!" With the Irish impulsiveness which generally weighs acts in retrospection, she reached over and gripped his hand.

"I say, you two!" Hawksley closed his eyes for a second. "Wanting to buck up a chap because you're that sort! All right. I'll stick it out! You two! And I might be the worst scoundrel unhung!"

He drew her hand toward his lips, and Kitty had not the power to resist him. She felt strangely