I ever had a woman friend in my life--I mean a friend who wasn't just the wife of some man I knew in business." The confession touched her, and she answered impulsively: "Well, that's just what I want to be to you--a good friend." He laughed, but his eyes shone as he looked down on her.

"If you'd only take the trouble." "It won't be any trouble--not a bit of it.

After your goodness to me, how could I help being your friend ?" Lifting her eyes she would have met his squarely while she spoke, but he was not looking at her--he appeared, indeed, to be looking almost obstinately away from her.
"There wasn't anything in what I did," he responded in a barely audible voice, and she understood that he was embarrassed by her gratitude.
"But there was something in it--there was a great deal in it," she insisted.

It was so easy to be natural with a man, so easy to be candid and sincere when there was no question of sentiment, and, she thought almost gratefully of the elusive and mysterious Alice.

The faintest suggestion of romance would have spoiled things in the beginning; but thanks to the hidden Alice, she might be as kind and frank as she pleased.