“If she is I don’t see how she could—” Her voice trailed away. Her eyes forsook his face to roam the shadows of the room. She added to herself rather than to him: “I couldn’t ha’ done it if it was me.”
“Oh, if you were in love––”
The eyes wandered back from the shadows to rest on him again. They were sorrowful eyes, and unabashed. A child’s would have had this unreproachful ache in them, or a dog’s. Though he didn’t know what it meant it disturbed him into leaving his sentence there.
It occurred to him then that they were forgetting the subject in hand. He had not expected to be able to converse with her, yet something like conversation had been taking place. It had come to him, too, that she had a mind, and now that he really looked at her he saw that the face was intelligent. Yesterday that face had been no more to him than a smudge, without character, and almost featureless, while to-day....
The train of his thought being twofold he could think along one line, and speak along another. “So if you go to see my lawyer he’ll suggest different things that you could do––”
“I’d rather do whatever ’ud make it easiest for you.”
“You’re very kind, but I think I’d better not suggest. I’ll leave that to him and you. He knows already that he’s to supply you with whatever money you need for the present; and after everything is settled I’ll see that you have––”
The damask flush which Steptoe had admired stole over a face flooded with alarm. She spoke as she rose, drawing a little back from him. “I do’ want any money.”
He looked up at her in protestation. “Oh, but you must take it.”