"
She laughed again. "Oh, don't say that this doesn't appeal
to your sense of humour!" she urged, with mock fervour.
Thorpe sighed in such unaffected depression at this,
that she seemed touched by his mood. Without stirring from
his hold, she lifted her face. "Don't think I'm hateful,"
she bade him, and her eyes were very kind. "There's more
truth in what you've been saying than even you imagine.
It really wasn't the money--or I mean it might easily have
been the same if there had been no money. But how shall I
explain it? I am attracted by a big, bold, strong pirate,
let us say, but as soon as he has carried me off--that
is the phrase for it--then he straightway renounces
crime and becomes a law-abiding, peaceful citizen.
My buccaneer transforms himself, under my very eyes,
into an alderman! Do you say there is no comedy in that--and
tragedy too?"
"Oh, put it that way and it's all right," he declared,
after a moment's consideration. "I've got as much fun
in me as anybody else," he went on, "only your jokes have
a way of raising blisters on me, somehow. But that's
all done with now. That's because I didn't know you--was
frightened of you. But I aint scared any more.
Everything is different!"
With a certain graciousness of lingering movement,
she withdrew herself from his clasp, and faced him with
a doubtful smile.
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