Mary's
heart, seasoned though it were, felt a charming flutter. She talked, and
she talked well. She had no independence of mind, and very little real
knowledge; but she had an excellent reporter's ability; she knew what to
remember, and how to tell it. Cliffe listened to her attentively,
acknowledging to himself the while that she had certainly gained. She
was a far more definite personality than she had been when he last knew
her; and her self-possession, her trained manner, rested him. Thank
Heaven, she was not a clever woman--how he detested the breed! But she
was a useful one. And the smiling commonplace into which she fell so
often was positively welcome to him. He had known what it was to court a
woman who was more than his equal both in mind and passion; and it had
left him bitter and broken.
"Well, all this is most illuminating," he said at last. "I owe you
immense thanks." And he put out a pair of hands, thin, brown, and
weather-stained as his face, and pressed one of hers. "We're very old
friends, aren't we?"
"Are we?" said Mary, drawing back.
"So far as any one can be the friend of a chap like me," he said,
hastily.
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