Another silence followed this admission, and then he rose to go. "I guess that'll be about all from me!--Only I want you to know, Miss Darcy, I--I never meant to do such a thing--I never knew I had it in me! Good Lord! When I saw you all crumpled up there in that gully, not moving at all, even when the train-gang came to pick you up--When I knew that I had done it, I--! And then you opened your eyes and looked at me.... Oh, hell, what's the use?" He turned blindly toward the door. She had to catch at his coat-tails to stop him. "Archie! Wait a minute.--I'm going to make you a speech myself. In the first place, Archibald Blair, your sort of 'feelings' wouldn't insult anybody. They couldn't! I'm proud to have you care for me, and I'd be glad, too, if only I could--But it's not as if you were asking anything in return, is it?" "Me?--_asking_? Good Lord, I'm not such a mutt as that!" "Some day you will be 'asking,' Archie dear--a worthier girl than I am, I know--and she won't think you a mutt at all!" He shook his head. "No, Miss Darcy. You've sort of spoiled ordinary girls for me." She cried honestly, "I hope not! Oh, I do hope not! Because I was going to beg you to stay friends with me--I need friends. And I _can't_ keep you if you're going to go on feeling that way!" "Sure you can," said Archie, his eyes lighting. "Just try me and see! I'll make one of the best little old pals you ever saw, if you'll just forgive the fool way I acted. Now that the steam's sort of blown off, we--we understand each other." "You're certain that we _do_ understand each other?" Her gaze met his squarely. "You're not going to expect things that can't ever be?" "No, ma'am," said Archie. Tears suddenly came into her eyes. There was a quality in this faithful, doglike devotion that made her feel ashamed. It deserved response; it deserved something better than mere affectionate gratitude. But that was all she found herself able to give. With a demonstrativeness rarer than he guessed, she caught his big hand in both of hers and held it for a moment to her cheek. When she let it go there was a tear on the back of it; which Archie, gazing at wonderingly, suddenly lifted to his lips. It was in acts like this, little untaught gestures of pure reverence, that the boy belied his slang and his big ears and his general clumsiness, and harked back to the age of chivalry, when a gentleman was not ashamed to dedicate himself to the service of his lady, and be her very perfect knight.... After he had gone, Effie May wandered into Joan's room with a slight air of expectancy about her which the girl was too preoccupied to notice. "You're lookin' sort of white about the gills, dearie," she remarked. "Does the shoulder pain you?"