“I beg your pardon,” he said, with slow difficulty. “I have made a stupid mistake—I thought—” he stopped and drew a sharp breath.
The girl’s eyes met his steadily for a moment, and then she smiled again slightly.
“Oh, certainly,” she said, easily. “I have reminded so many people of so many other people that I am getting quite used to it! Resemblances are so often deceiving.”
Cahill looked at her in a curiously relieved way.
“And here we are, standing talking,” she ran on, “while the children are waiting to sing! They have learned some very pretty Easter hymns. You shall hear them.”
She spoke rapidly and directly to Cahill as though she wished to prevent him from talking, and her voice sounded strained and monotonous. She went over to the piano quickly and seated herself, and presently, when the children had got through their songs, she began to sing alone, and that evening both Miss Minot and Miss Cahill agreed enthusiastically that she had never sung like that before, and that if the director of the Grand Opera had heard her he would have signed a contract with her on the spot.
Miss Minot was rather disappointed that Cahill did not seem more impressed.
“I don’t believe you enjoyed it half as much as I thought you would,” she said, reproachfully to him. It was late, and they were just leaving the drawing-room, but he had held her back for an instant while the others passed on into the big hall.
“And isn’t she lovely and a great artist?” she insisted.
Cahill looked down at the severely beautiful face beside him, and for an instant the feeling of dread and apprehension which had swept over him that afternoon returned with redoubled force. He felt again the sudden, awful shock the sight of that girl’s face had been to him, the intense relief on discovering his mistake. He realized acutely and for the first time just how impossible it would ever be to tell her of that episode in his life which the girl’s face had recalled, and which he had once felt impelled to tell his father, and he determined to make up to her in every way that a man can, for his silence. The possibility which had faced him for a moment, of losing her, had made her inexpressibly dear to him, and in that instant he had realized passionately all that the loss of her would mean to him. He had felt unutterably glad that the danger had been averted and that she need never know. He did not mean to deceive her, but as he held her hand and looked at her, he had but one thought, one fierce desire—to keep that look of trust and happiness forever on her earnest and beautiful face. He leaned forward slightly.