No one could have better played the part of devoted, understanding
friend who by excess of love had been betrayed into one lapse of
passionate outburst, and now wished only to soothe and comfort.
"She is a good sort," John Derringham thought, after her first visit.
"She will let me down easy in any case," and the ceasing of his anxiety
about his financial position comforted him greatly.
The next time she came and sat by his bed, a vision of fresh summer
laces and chiffons, he determined to make the position clear to her.
She always bent and kissed him with airy grace, then sat down at a
discreet distance. She felt he was not overanxious to caress her, and
preferred that the rendering of this impossible should come from her
side. Indeed, unless kisses were necessary to gain an end, she did not
care for them herself--stupid, contemptible things, she thought them!
John Derringham would have touched the hearts of most women as he lay
there, but Cecilia Cricklander had not this tiresome appendage, only the
business brain and unemotional sensibilities of her grandfather the pork
butcher.
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