Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/194

188 "Ah, little girls and their mothers to-day!" she rather inconsequently broke in. But she checked herself with something that she seemed to give out as, after all, more to the point. "Tell her I've been good for him. Don't you think I have?"

It had its effect on him more than, at the moment, he quite measured. Yet he was consciously enough touched. "Oh, if it's all you!"

"Well, it may not be 'all,' she interrupted, "but it's to a great extent. Really and truly," she added in a tone that was to take its place with him among things remembered.

"Then it's very wonderful." He smiled at her from a face that he felt as strained, and her own face for a moment kept him so.

At last she also got up. "Well, don't you think that for that"

"I ought to save you?" So it was that the way to meet her—and the way, as well, in a manner, to get off—came over him. He heard himself use the exorbitant word, the very sound of which helped to determine his flight. "I'll save you if I can."