But if the thrill he had expected to feel was replaced by this dull disappointment, another emotion did not fail to supervene. It was pity—pity not unmixed with compunction. Had it been so manly as he had thought, to come interfering with her business, violating the immemorial local tradition which assigned the carrying to a Quarles? “Won’t you come in?” she was forced to say, seeing him silent and petrified in the porch. “Thank you—I’ve only brought this from Miss Gentry,” he answered in awkward negation. He had come to jeer, but now he held the pot of Hair Restorer apologetically. Jinny went from white to red. It was the supreme humiliation. Not only had he not come to make it up: he had come at the culminating moment of his triumph—sent as a carrier to _her_! And sent not merely with a parcel, but with the proof of her blundering! “How kind of her!” she said, taking it, but neither her hand nor her voice was steady. “Did she send any message with it?” “Not particularly.” He had meant to rub in Miss Gentry’s denunciations of female stupidity, to demand the other pot, but his heart failed. “Well, thank her for her present,” said poor Jinny, struggling hard for composure. “And tell her I’ll be giving her something in return on my next round.” He suppressed a smile; shamed from it by the pathos of her courage. “I guess she means it for your grandfather,” he said chivalrously. “Perhaps she does,” Jinny murmured. She turned away to close the door on herself. The beautiful black horses pawed the ground impatiently. Will shuffled and squirmed less gracefully—there seemed nothing to do but to go. Had he not refused to step inside? But he had taken her at the end of his long round, he had deposited all his passengers and packages, and he felt loth to leave her thus. A resolution was forming within him—generating so rapidly in the warmth of compunction and renewed comradeship, that possibly the germs of it had already taken root in his subconsciousness when Nip’s label brought him her sneer at his lack of a guard. “It’s very hot,” he fenced, lingering. “Can I have a glass of water?” She started, remembering the Gaffer’s admonition. “Oh, won’t you have a glass of beer?” “No, thanks, just Adam’s ale.” Almost liquefied herself by feeling this son of Adam needed her,—even thus slightly—she moved swiftly to and fro, returning with the glass. But not so swiftly that she had not smuggled Oliver’s Depilatory and the wedding-cake into the kitchen in case he should yet come in. He took the glass, managing to touch her cold trembling fingers. “Much obliged,” he said, after a deep draught, and this time it was _her_ fingers that were drawn, though less consciously, to touch his round the returned glass. Then, swallowing something harder than water, “I’ve been thinking about it all, Jinny, and I’m sorry——” he blurted. “Ha!” Her heart leapt up again. “Sorry for you,” he explained. “For me?” Her face hardened.