Though he mistook the reason, he saw that the situation was painful to her, and he came quickly to the rescue. “You haven’t told me why you’ve come down here at this time in the morning,” he said easily. “There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Bagsbury, I hope.” His consideration for her, even at such a moment, touched her. The tremulous brightness of her eyes would have told him something if he had looked up at them. She herself had forgotten by that time where they were standing. “It’s nothing--I mean nothing important. I want to see John for a minute.” “It’s pretty early for him yet, isn’t it?” asked Jack. Still he would not look at her. They were standing just before the entrance to the bank, but she did not move to go in. Hillsmead came bustling up, and, as he passed them, lifted his hat in his latest and most impressive manner; but they looked at him with unseeing eyes. He would have had the same sort of reception had he been a six-gun field battery, or a circus parade with caged animals. “Is it?” she asked listlessly. “He started before I did--oh, of course; he walks. I forgot that.” Then her tone changed quickly. “I think I’ll go in and wait for him. It’ll be all right for me to stay in his office till he comes, won’t it?” He nodded assent, and led the way into the bank. They passed Hillsmead as they turned in behind the rail, and Jack wondered why he wore that peculiar expression. But he did not think of Hillsmead for more than a fraction of a second. He ushered Dick into the private office, raised a window, and placed a chair for her near by where she could feel the breeze. “I don’t believe it will be very long before he comes,” he said. Then with an effort he added: “I can’t stay here. I--I have my work, you see--” He turned toward the door, but before he reached it she spoke his name. “Don’t go away, Jack. I want--tell me what you started to tell me out there.” She had not taken the chair he had placed for her, but was standing close by the window. He could not see her face. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “You had answered me already. It was wrong in me to try to compel you to do it more directly. I presumed on your liking me, and wanting to be kind to me.” He dropped down in John’s big desk chair, and, bending forward, pressed his clasped hands together between his knees. “It is just what I tried to tell you a week ago last night in the Bagsburys’ library,” he went on, speaking slowly and precisely; “nothing but just this: that I know what it really means now to love you, Dick. I didn’t know those other times when I told you. You were right about that. Now that I really understand, I can see how little I understood before. And until that night, I hoped that you knew I really understood, and that you--” If he had looked at her, he would have stopped there, but his eyes were still averted, and he labored painfully on through a bog of words, until at last, mercifully, she interrupted him.