"Buy me another cocktail," she demanded.
He obeyed, and she drank it at a gulp.
"So you are not going to be nice to me?" she asked in a low tone.
"That depends upon what you call nice," he answered. "I am rather up
against a blank wall. Even if I succeed, I remain in this country at very
considerable personal danger. I am not sure that even for your sake, Nora,
it is well for you to associate with me. Why not go home? You'll find some
of your people still there--and an old sweetheart or two, very likely."
"It isn't a very warm welcome," she remarked, a little wistfully.
"You have taken me by surprise," he reminded her. "I had not the slightest
idea of your coming."
"I know that," she sighed. "I suppose I ought not to have hoped for
anything more. You've never been any different to me than to any of the
others. You treat us all, men and women, just alike. You are gracious or
cold, just according to how much we can help. I sometimes wonder, Mr.
Jocelyn Thew, whether you have a heart at all."
For a single moment he looked at her kindly. His hand even patted hers. It
was a curious revelation. He was a kindly ordinary human being.
"Ah, Nora," he said, "I am not quite so bad as that! But for many years I
have had a great, driving impulse inside me, and at the back of it the most
wonderful incentive in all the world.
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