CHAPTER XXV
The Rift in the Clouds
"My dear child, I can never forgive myself for having made you cry like this!" exclaimed Mr. Selincourt; for Katherine was sobbing as vigorously as she did most other things, and he was genuinely distressed.
"Oh, I am glad to cry! I mean, I am so happy, because it came out all right. And oh, please do forgive me for having been so foolish! I wonder whatever you must think of me!" and, heaving a deep sigh of relief, Katherine sat up and wiped her eyes.
"I think you are a very charming and tender-hearted young lady. But I shall have to be very careful how I tell you sad things, if this is the way you are going to receive my confidences," he said, with a rather rueful air; for she was by no means the sort of girl he would have expected to indulge in the weakness of tears.
Katherine laughed. She was desperately ashamed of having been so foolish; but those words of gratitude, spoken by Mr. Selincourt about the person who had wronged him were like balm to her sore heart. It was as if her father had confessed his fault, and had been forgiven on earth as well as in heaven.
"You must pay the penalty of your eloquence by seeing your audience drowned in tears," she said lightly. Then, rolling up the remainder of the furs, she left the stockroom and returned to the store, whither Mr. Selincourt followed her; and as there were no customers he sat on a box and talked on, as if it were a real pleasure to have found a sympathetic listener.
"Those two years of struggle, of disappointment and bitter poverty, have had their uses," he said, in a meditative fashion, as he sat looking out through the door, which Katherine had unlocked again. His gaze was on the river, which sparkled and gleamed in the sunshine, but his thoughts were far away.
Katherine answered only by a splitting, rending noise, as she tore a piece of calico. But that did not matter, because he was too much absorbed in his own thoughts to need other speech just then.
"Perhaps if I had not been poor myself I should not have had sympathy with other men who were in the slough and couldn't get out," he said, speaking as much to himself as to Katherine.