Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/76

 about you—for a good many years. Everyone has. You've been away ever since the start of the war, of course; and even before that you were away, mostly in England, for the greater part of your time, weren't you?"

"I was at school at Harrow for a while," he confessed. "And I was at Cambridge in 1913-1914."

"That's what I thought. So while you've called yourself an American and you've meant to stay an American—I know you meant that—you couldn't quite really become one, could you?"

He drew back from her a trifle and his eyes rested upon hers a little confused, while color crept into his brown face and across his forehead.

"Please tell me just what you want to," he begged.

"I don't want to tell you a thing unpleasant!" she cried quietly. "And I can't, unless you'll believe that I never admired anyone so much as you when you were speaking—I mean anyone," she qualified quickly, "who was saying things which I believed all wrong!"

Terror for her boldness caught her again; but it was because he had seen that with him she must be bold—or honest—that he had wanted her there; for he did want her there and more than before. While he had been speaking, she had been thinking about him—thinking as well as feeling for him; and she had been thinking about him ever since—thinking thoughts her own, or at least distinct from his and from those of his friends in the other rooms who had so acclaimed him and from whom he had fled. He realized it; and that was why he wanted her.

"I believe that to be a true American is the highest honor in the world today," she said with the simplicity of