I bowed. “I am sorry you so misunderstand.”
“Misunderstand!” she repeated, quickly. “I don’t misunderstand that if you were the kind of masculine formality you have been acting here this morning you would never have done what you have for me in the last two days. I am only a woman, of course—wait, you will wish to see Father Ambrose again before you go. I’ll tell him;” and she crossed to the door.
“Good-bye,” I said, but she paid no heed and went out of the room. It was not the kind of parting I had looked for, but I smothered my regrets. It was better so.
We could not go on being Bob and Peggy to one another of course; and yet we had been too closely associated to drop back into mere formal friendliness again without a wrench. She couldn’t see this in a moment; but she would understand it later; and—well, the sooner I was away, the better for my peace of mind.
Then she came back bringing the priest with her. He was very plastic clay in her white young hands. He wore a look of deep and almost comical perplexity, and was obviously very ill at ease.
“Now, Father, please. What have you said or done to Mr. Anstruther to change him in this short time?”
He glanced half appealingly at me; but I was as little at ease as he was. “My dear child, I—I—er——”
“You have lectured me already on the wisdom and necessity of complete frankness, Father,” she interposed significantly.
“It is very difficult to gather——” he got no farther, for she held up a warning finger and shook it at him with a laugh and then placed it on his lips.
“There shall not be any difficulty,” she declared. “For two days Mr. Anstruther has been just like a brother to me; treating me perfectly frankly and saying as candidly as any brother whatever was in his thoughts. We made a compact that he should do that, and he kept it honestly. I left him in that mood when I first saw you. You then had a long talk with him and I found him entirely changed; keeping something from me; formal in manner; saying things he didn’t mean and meaning others he didn’t say. Instead of a brother, he was an acquaintance. You caused this by something you said. Now tell me, please.”