Page:The Sick-A-Bed Lady.djvu/242

 ing, heart-breaking, utterly wholesome effort to please, but just one hideously chronic, mawkishly conscientious effort to be pleased, to act pleased though it blast your eyes and sear your lips-to look pleased. I tell you I won t have it !"

"I understand all that," said Ruth gravely. "I understand it quite perfectly. But underneath it all I would rather you had taken me in your arms as though I were a little, little hurt girl and comforted me-"

But before Drew's choking throat-cry had reached his lips she had sprung from her seat and was facing him defiantly. Across her face flared suddenly for the first time the full, dark flush of one of Life's big tides, and the fear in her hands reached up and clutched at Drew's shoulders. The gesture tipped her head back like a fagged swim mer's struggling in the water.

"I am pleading for my life, Drew," she gasped, "for my body, for my soul, for my health, for my happiness, for home, for safety"

He snatched her suddenly into his arms. "My God ! Ruth," he cried, "what do you want me to do?"

Triumph came like a holiday laugh to her hag gard face.

"What do I want you to do ?" she dimpled. "Why, I want you to come with me now and get