And, looking into his light, masterful eyes, the girl knew all at once that she would not have the wit nor the force to avoid him. The knowledge turned her sick. Her round, helpless gaze shifted involuntarily to Desirée, as the nearest woman to her. And, under the genuine fright behind that appeal, the steel glint that had of a sudden hardened Desirée’s big eyes, softened unaccountably. A quick sentence that had risen to her lips died unborn.
For a moment, before convention could lower the veil, the two women read each other to the very soul. At what the brief glance told her, Letty drew her breath with a sharp intake that made Conover glance at her inquiringly. To cover her confusion, Miss Standish plunged into speech on the first subject that crossed her mind.
“I hope you didn’t mind Uncle Guy’s rudeness, Mr. Conover,” she began, “He really doesn’t mean half the cross things he says. He suffers so dreadfully from dyspepsia and—and there are sometimes family troubles, too, that—”
“I know,” assented Caleb, “I’ve heard. Married a wife that was too rich for him. She don’t always agree with him, I hear, an’ I s’pose it gives him mental indigestion. No offence. I forgot they’re rel’tives of yours.”
“I’m sorry, just the same, that he spoke so threateningly to you,” went on Letty.
She found it so easy to talk to him now. A weight seemed off her heart.
“Threats don’t keep me guessin’ very much,” Conover reassured her, delighted at her new ease of bearing toward him, “No one’s goin’ to do a rich man any real harm or hold grouches against him. To him that hath, it shall be forgiven. That’s in the Bible, ain’t it? Or somethin’ like it. The trouble with men like your uncle is that they don’t see any farther ahead than twenty years ago. Business an’ pol’tics have changed a lot since then. But the old crowd don’t see it. They’re like a feller that rows a boat. They move ahead because the boat carries ’em ahead. But they’re always facin’ astern.”
He felt he was talking amazingly well. He was almost annoyed when Desirée, having sat in troubled silence for some minutes, rose abruptly and proposed that they should go.
Letty Standish, watching them depart, was saying over and over to herself in a rapturous sing-song:
“She won’t let him make love to me. She won’t! She won’t!”