“Pray, don’t bother about me,” he had said. “I am quite able to look after myself; besides, I like to be alone.”
But her unobtrusive sympathy and [p259] childish frankness soon conquered his pride. She read to him from books she did not understand, played games with him, and showed him new walks in the woods. And incidentally, she revealed to him her struggling, starving, wistful soul that no one else had ever discovered.
She never talked to him of her love affair, but she dwelt vaguely on the virtues of duty and loyalty and self-sacrifice. The facts in the case were supplied by Mrs. Gusty.
Hinton looked at his watch again, and groaned when he found it was only a quarter past two. Feeling his way cautiously along the porch and down the steps, he moved idly about the yard. He could not distinguish Menelaus from Paris now, and Helen of Troy was no longer to be recognized.
At long intervals a vehicle rattled past, leaving a cloud of dust behind. The air shimmered with the heat, and the low, insistent buzzing of bees beat on his ears mercilessly. He wondered [p260] impatiently why Guinevere did not come down, then checked himself as he remembered the constant demands he made upon her time.
At three o’clock he could stand it no longer. He felt a queer, dull sensation about his head, and he constantly drew his hand across his eyes to dispel the impression of a mist before them.
“Oh, Miss Guinevere!” he called up to her window. “Would you mind coming down just for a little while!”
Guinevere’s head appeared so promptly that it was evident it had been lying on the window-sill.
“Is it time for your medicine?” she asked guiltily. “Mother said it didn’t come till four.”
“Oh, no,” said Hinton, with forced cheerfulness; “it isn’t that. You remember the old song, don’t you, ‘When a man’s afraid, a beautiful maid is a cheering sight to see’?”