Five would see them
all dead."
She struck the bench again. "Oh, you laugh at me! You make a joke of your
own life and death, and laugh at everything! Have five years of Plattville
taught you to do that?"
"I laugh only at taking the poor Cross-Roaders too seriously. I don't
laugh at your running into fire to help a fellow-mortal."
"I knew there wasn't any risk. I knew he had to stop to load before he
shot again."
"He did shoot again. If I had known you before to-night--I--" His tone
changed and he spoke gravely. "I am at your feet in worship of your
philanthropy. It's so much finer to risk your life for a stranger than for
a friend."
"That is rather a man's point of view, isn't it?"
"You risked yours for a man you had never seen before."
"Oh, no! I saw you at the lecture; I heard you introduce the Honorable Mr.
Halloway."
"Then I don't understand your wishing to save me."
She smiled unwillingly, and turned her gray eyes upon him with troubled
sunniness, and, under the kindness of her regard, he set a watch upon his
lips, though he knew it might not avail him. He had driveled along
respectably so far, he thought, but he had the sentimental longings of
years, starved of expression, culminating in his heart. She continued to
look at him, wistfully, searchingly, gently. Then her eyes traveled over
his big frame from his shoes (a patch of moonlight fell on them; they were
dusty; he drew them under the bench with a shudder) to his broad shoulders
(he shook the stoop out of them).
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