"It is," she said, her voice as quiet as his own; and after a moment's hesitation, she went back to her seat again. "If you think I can be of use," she added. "I'm ready."
A little pause fell between them, during which Dr. Fillery touched an electric bell beside his chair. Nurse Robbins appeared with what seemed miraculous swiftness. "Still sleeping quietly, sir, and pulse normal again," she replied in answer to a question, then vanished as suddenly as she had come. He looked into the girl's eyes across the room. "A competent, reliable nurse," he remarked, "and, as you saw, a pretty woman." He glanced out of the window. "She is unmarried." He mentioned it apparently to the sky.
The quick mind took in his meaning instantly. "All women will be drawn to him irresistibly, of course," she said. "But it is not that."
"No, no, of course it is not that," he agreed at once. "I should like you to see him, though not, however, just yet——" He went on after a moment's reflection, and speaking slowly: "I should like you to wait a little. It's best. There has been a—a certain disturbance in his being——"
"It's his first experience," she began, "of beauty——"
"Of beauty in women, yes," he finished for her. "It is. We must avoid anything in the nature of a violent shock——"
"He has asked for me?" she interrupted again, in her quiet way.
He shook his head. "And we cannot be sure that it was you—as you—he sought and is affected by. The call he hears is, perhaps, hardly the call that sounds in most men's ears, I mean."
The hint of warning guidance was audible in his voice, as well as visible in his eyes and manner. The laughter they both betrayed, a grave and curious laughter perhaps, was brief, yet enough to conceal stranger emotions that rose like dumb, gazing figures almost before their eyes. Yet if she knew inner turmoil, emotion of any troubling sort, she concealed it perfectly.
"I am glad," the girl said presently. "Oh, I am really glad. I think I understand, Edward." And, even while he sat silent for a bit, watching her with an ever-growing admiration that at the same time marvelled, he saw the wonder of great questions riding through her face. The recollection of what she had suffered publicly in the Studio a few hours before came into his mind again. In these questions, perhaps, lay the only signs of the hidden storm below the surface.