Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/161

Rh "Oh, you have already—you do!" the girl assured. "For, of course, I didn't worry much about you," she hurried on at once. "I only worried about—well, Mr. Dunneston and the other English who, obviously, cannot appreciate either your natural way or—"

"Or its compensation?"

"Yes. It left you so defenceless among them."

"So that was the way I appeared to you?" Preston turned back to his window and gazed out. "That was why you stood by and did—what you did for me? I knew you couldn't think much about me, of course; but I didn't think that I was to you just some one whom you felt you had to take up and care for—a defenceless Daniel in the British Lion's den!"

"Didn't you?" the girl laughed gayly. "Well, you were—just that! And now, Mr. Preston," she gathered herself up sternly, "please be serious a moment—oh, sensible, I meant, sensible! Serious means sensible to most people, but clearly not to you!"

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