"
She smiled and patted his head.
"At any rate," she said, "but for him I should not have found you! I
wonder--"
I answered her unspoken question.
"I should not have come out," I told her. "To tell you the truth, Adele,
I am a different man now from what I was half an hour ago. I had
forgotten that I was still a live being, and that the world was, after
all, a beautiful place. I think I had forgotten that there was such a
person as Hardross Courage. The absorption of these days, when one has to
remember, even with every tick of the clock, that the slightest
carelessness, the slightest slip, means certain death--well, it lays hold
of you. No wonder the lines are there, dear!"
"Some day," she whispered, "I will smooth them all away for you! ..."
Gilbert came in a few minutes later.
"I am sorry to disturb you," he said, "but it is time I was off."
He glanced at Adele.
"We have no secrets," I declared quickly.
He smiled.
"Well," he said, "I have an appointment with the Foreign Secretary at
three o'clock this afternoon.
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