Burned Bridges

"A penny for your thoughts," she said lightly.

"I was thinking of you," he answered truthfully.

He looked up as he spoke and his heart leaped at the faint flush that

rose slowly over Sophie's face. Indeed all the high resolve that had

been shaping in his soul for the past ten minutes came near going by the

board. It would have been so easy to imprison the hand that lay along

the chair-arm next his own, to utter words that trembled on his tongue,

to break through the ice that Sophie used as a shield--for the instant

he felt sure of that--and dare what fires burned beneath.

While he stood, poised as it were, upon the tip-toe of indecision, Carr

and Tommy Ashe came back.

Afterward, on his way home, Thompson wondered at the swift challenging

glance Tommy shot at Sophie in that moment. As if Tommy detected some

tensity of feeling that he resented.