“We’re only going to stay a minute,” Kee said. “We must get home to luncheon. It’s late now, and my wife will be furious. Miss Remsen, I think I’ll speak right out and not beat about the bush.”
She turned rather white, but sat listening, her hands clasped in her lap and her little white-shod foot tapping nervously on the porch floor.
“I want to ask you,” Keeley Moore spoke in a tone of such kindness that I could see Alma pluck up heart a bit, “about the waistcoats. Though it may be a trifling matter, yet great issues may hang on it. When you said your uncle gave them to you, were you strictly truthful?”
She sat silent, looking from one to the other of us. When she glanced at me I was startled at the message in her eyes. If ever a call of SOS was signalled, it was then. Without a word or a gesture her gaze implored my help.
But with all the willingness in the world, what could I do? Keeley had warned me against making a fool of myself, and though I would gladly have defied him to serve her, I could see no way to do so, fool or no fool. All I could do, was to give her back gaze for gaze and try to put in my eyes all the sympathy and help that were surging up in my heart.
I think she understood, and yet I could see a shadow of disappointment that I could, as she saw, do nothing definite.
Moore was waiting for his answer, but she was deliberate of manner and speech.
“By what right are you questioning me, Mr. Moore?” she said.
“Principally by right of my interest in you and your welfare and my great desire to be of service to you.” Kee’s sincerity was beyond all doubt.
“That is the truth?”