It was about two weeks after this that Cahill began to realize just how deeply in love he was with Edith Minot. She had interested him from the first, and her very dissimilarity from most of the society girls he knew, the nobility and seriousness of her nature beneath a rather cold and conventional manner, and the young purity of her presence had struck him as being the finest and most attractive things he had ever seen. He had been with her a great deal in the two weeks she had spent with his sister, and he had had a great many opportunities of finding out just how superior she was to most girls, how witty and clever she could be, and what native dignity and fine simplicity of character she possessed, and how sincere and truthful she was. They had gone together to teas and receptions, and small dances, and the numerous post-Easter weddings, and the fact that she was his sister’s guest made it very easy for him to see a great deal of her without any gossip or talk. But delightful as all that had been, he was glad now that she was going back in a few days to her own people, and that he could go down in a decently short time and tell her what he could not tell her in his father’s house and which he had found so hard to withhold. The uncertainty in which he was as to whether she cared for him or not made him restless and very properly despondent, although he sometimes fancied that she was less cold to him than to the others, and that if she talked with him about certain things of particular interest to her, it was because she valued his opinion and friendship. And he was much pleased and very flattered when she appealed to him about her different schemes, and was even ready to sacrifice their last day to the college settlement.
“I really must go to Tyler Street to-day,” Miss Minot had said. “It’s my last chance. I have been very selfish, and have been having entirely too good a time. Why, I haven’t even seen my boys or heard the Prima Donna Contessa!” She turned and smiled at Cahill as she spoke. “By the way,” she continued, “why don’t you and Louise come with me and hear her sing? I have sent her a note telling her to meet me at the settlement at four o’clock, and I know she will be only too pleased to sing for us. It is quite wonderful, you know.”
“Of course we will go,” assented Miss Cahill briskly, while her brother aquiesced cheerfully, if less enthusiastically. It occurred to him that it would be as well for him not to be alone with Miss Minot any more, if he intended to hold to his resolution of not speaking just yet.
It was rather late when they started for the settlement, and by the time they had walked down Tyler Street from Kneeland—they left the carriage at the corner of Kneeland—they found that it was quite four and time for a club, the members of which were enthusiastically crowding around the door waiting for permission to enter, and playing leap-frog and tag and imperilling life and limb by walking on the spiked iron fence in their frantic attempts to see in the windows. But when they caught sight of Miss Minot they stopped playing and jumped down from the fence and threw away their shinny sticks, and began to all talk at once at her, and to tell her what they had been doing during the winter, and that they hadn’t been absent from school but twice or ten times, or not at all, as the case happened to be, and they all seemed to have had a surprising number of deadly diseases, of which fact they were inordinately proud; and there were several still on the waiting list, who wanted her to intercede for them to have their names put in the club books, so they could go in and have a good time with the others; to all of which, and a great deal more, she listened sympathetically and interestedly. And as she stood so, the eager, softened expression on her face, laughing and talking with the children crowding around her, the boys grabbing at her hands and the little girls touching shyly the gown she wore, it seemed to Cahill that he had never seen her quite so lovely and lovable. He felt an amused sort of jealousy as he saw her run lightly up the steps with her slim hands held tightly by two very dirty and very affectionate little boys, with the rest swarming after her and hemming her in; and when the front door was finally opened and she and his sister disappeared with them into the rooms beyond, he felt rather aggrieved and out of it.
He found himself in a narrow little hall and was just wondering what he should do with his hat and stick, when she came out from the inner room, closing the door behind her. She was laughing in a breathless, pleased way, and her face had a little flush on it as she turned to him.
“Please take off my coat,” she gasped, leaning against the balustrade of the steep little stairs. “I’m going to amuse them until the Prima Donna comes—she isn’t here, at least I don’t see her anywhere. Louise is playing for them now.” Cahill could just catch the sounds of a piano above the shrill laughter of the children. They were quite alone in the little hallway, and as he bent down to take off her coat, a sudden, wild impulse overcame him. He forgot everything except that he loved her and must tell her so, and he held her tightly while he spoke rapidly and earnestly. It suddenly seemed preposterous to him that he could have dreamed of waiting another week to find out whether she loved him or not; she must tell him then and there, he said, quick, before anyone came. And although she did not, in fact, tell him anything at all, he was so content with her eyes as she turned toward him that, bending down, he gave her one quick kiss after another.
And then the sound of the piano ceased and they heard a scramble of running feet at the door, which was thrown open by Miss Cahill.
“Where are you? come in!” she cried.
As Cahill and Miss Minot went into the room beyond, a girl came slowly down the stairs which they had just left. Her face was pitifully white and drawn, and there was a scared, surprised look in her eyes which was not good to see. When she reached the lowest step she stopped thoughtfully, leaning heavily against the stairs’ rail.
“I saw them,” she said, softly and tremulously to herself. “I saw them, and there is no possibility of a mistake. I don’t understand anything about it—how it has happened—but it was he—it was he! If she loves him—and she does love him—I saw it in her face, there is but one thing for me to do—there is no other way now.” She put both hands on the banister and swayed slightly toward it in her effort to control herself. “She has been everything to me, has done everything for me. And if I love him—and I do love him!—there is a million times more necessity for me to do it.” Her lips worked painfully and silently for a moment.