"Oh, Barry, I'm so glad you're interested!" Standing a step above
him, Sidney's ardent face was very close to his own. "Of course we
can do it," she said.

"We!" he echoed almost bitterly. "YOU'LL do it; you're the one--" He
broke off with a short, embarrassed laugh. "I was going to cut that
sort of thing out," he said gruffly, "but all roads lead to Rome, it
seems. I can't talk to you five minutes without--and I've got to go.
I said I'd look in at the office."

"You seem to be afraid to be friendly lately, Barry," said Mrs.
Burgoyne in a hurt voice, flinging away the rose she had been
holding, "but don't you think our friendship means something to me,
too? I don't like you to talk as if I did all the giving and you all
the taking. I don't know how the girls and I would get along without
your advice and help here at the Hall. I think," her voice broke
into a troubled laugh, "I think you forget that the quality of
friendship is not strained."

"Sidney," he said with sudden resolution, turning to face her
bravely, "I can't be just friends with you. You're so much the
finest, so much the best--" He left the sentence unfinished, and
began again: "You have a hundred men friends; you can't realize what
you mean to me. You--but you know what you are, and I'm the editor
of a mortgaged country paper, a man who has made a mess of things,
who can't take care of his kid, or himself, on his job without help-
-"

"Barry--" she began breathlessly, but he interrupted her.