Afterward she could not remember his words because parallel with them she was reading her own interpretation. Already in a vague way she understood him, but his little story gave her the crystallized impression.
She had a picture of a lonely childhood, fatherless and motherless and pervaded with a longing for love that early learned to keep silence. That had been the first step in his self-possession. Education had been hard to get, and yet he had got what to the sons of rich men comes easily, and because to him it meant struggle, it had been the more treasured. Knowledge came hard because his mind worked slowly and painfully; therefore his grip was the tighter, and the habits of thought wrought out by exercise were now giving him a facility that cleverer men might envy. He could not know how the simple history gave her an impression of slow irresistible manhood, always, without drifting, moving toward its chosen end.
When they halted at her door, she had a feeling that she could not let him go, just yet.
“You’ll come in and dine with us, will you not?” she asked impulsively.
“I wish I might,” he answered with that longing tone one falls into when surveying an impossible and alluring temptation. “I simply have to work to-night. I’m already late for my engagement. May I come sometime soon?”
“I wish you would. Father is really very fond of you,” she went on, defending her warmth. “He likes young men. He has a sneaking longing for them that no mere girl satisfies. Dick used to be a great deal to him, but—Dick has drifted away. You have not been to see us for a long time.”
“Not since the day that Dick’s engagement was announced,” he answered, looking her boldly in the face. “I couldn’t. You made me feel then that you despised me.”
“I despised you?” she spoke with bland innocence but rising color.
“Yes.”
Madeline hesitated and looked down. She was scarlet.