Then he began again: "Miss Bart, listen--give me a minute.

If we're not to meet again, at least let me have a hearing now.

You say we can't be friends after--after what has happened.

But can't I at least appeal to your pity?
Can't I move you if I ask you to think of me as a prisoner--a prisoner you alone can set free ?" Lily's inward start betrayed itself in a quick blush: was it possible that this was really the sense of Carry Fisher's adumbrations?
"I can't see how I can possibly be of any help to you," she murmured, drawing back a little from the mounting excitement of his look.
Her tone seemed to sober him, as it had so often done in his stormiest moments.

The stubborn lines of his face relaxed, and he said, with an abrupt drop to docility: "You WOULD see, if you'd be as merciful as you used to be: and heaven knows I've never needed it more!" She paused a moment, moved in spite of herself by this reminder of her influence over him.