Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/245

 been maturing with marvelous swiftness in these last weeks into a man. His eyes showed it—his fine, impulsive, determined eyes, no less resolute and not less impatient, really, but somehow a little more tolerant and understanding than they had been. His lips showed it—thinner a trifle and a trifle more drawn and straight though they seemed to smile quite as easily. His whole bearing betrayed, not so much an abandonment of creeds he had lived by, as a doubt of their total sufficiency and the unsettledness which comes to one beginning to grasp something new.

"You've changed a good deal," Ruth offered audibly.

"I was thinking that about you," Gerry said.

"I guess—I guess we've changed some—together."

"I guess so."

She sat without response. Someone neared the door and Ruth roused and, forgetting Gerry for an instant, she listened in covert alarm in a manner which had become so habitual to her these last days that she was not aware of it until he noticed it. The step passed the door; and Ruth settled back.

"Well, Cynthia," Gerry asked her directly then, "what have you been up to?"

"What do you mean?"

"I was going to come to Paris to see you next week," Gerry said. "But something particular came up yesterday to make me manage this today. I shouldn't tell you, I suppose; in fact I know I shouldn't. The intelligence people have been poking about inquiring about you."

Ruth felt herself growing pale but she asked steadily enough,