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‘You’d better ask him,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘I don’t
know what it’s got to do with you if he is.’
A bitter answer leaped to his tongue, but he was learning
self-restraint.
‘I wonder why you say things like that,’ was all he permit-
ted himself to say.
She looked at him with those indifferent eyes of hers.
‘It looks as if you didn’t set much store on me,’ he added.
‘Why should I?’
‘No reason at all.’
He reached over for his paper.
‘You are quick-tempered,’ she said, when she saw the ges-
ture. ‘You do take offence easily.’
He smiled and looked at her appealingly.
‘Will you do something for me?’ he asked.
‘That depends what it is.’
‘Let me walk back to the station with you tonight.’
‘I don’t mind.’
He went out after tea and went back to his rooms, but at
eight o’clock, when the shop closed, he was waiting outside.
‘You are a caution,’ she said, when she came out. ‘I don’t
understand you.’
‘I shouldn’t have thought it was very difficult,’ he an-
swered bitterly.
‘Did any of the girls see you waiting for me?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’
‘They all laugh at you, you know. They say you’re spoony
on me.’
‘Much you care,’ he muttered.