She raised her head, and hastily wiping her eyes, laughed.
“What is the matter with me, Jeffrey? I wish I knew. Perhaps it’s the excitement! There, I’m all right now,” and she slid away from him.
The old man seized her arm, and looked into her face intently.
“Doris!” he said, in a husky voice; “you—you are not unhappy?”
“Unhappy!” and she laughed again. “Why should I be unhappy? Perhaps I cried because I’m too happy! Grief and joy are next of kin, you know. And oughtn’t I to be filled with joy, I, the Doris Marlowe, who is to play Juliet to-morrow night?”
His hand dropped from her arm, but he was only half-satisfied.
“If I thought——” he muttered. “Doris, you are all the world to me! Before Heaven I have had no thought but for you since”—he stopped abruptly—“since you became my care; day and night, early and late, I have worked to one end—to make you great and famous and happy! If I thought——” he wiped the perspiration from his brow, and looked at her almost wildly.
“I know, I know! Dear, dear old Jeffrey!” she murmured, soothing him with touch and voice. “No, I don’t know, but I can guess all you have been to me, all you have done for me. And I am happy, very, very happy! And I will be great and famous if you wish it! You shall see!” she said, nodding, and smiling through the tears that veiled her lovely eyes. “Wait till to-morrow night. There, it is you who are excited now! And now I’m going to try my dress on. We must look the Juliet if we cannot act her,” and she stooped and kissed his forehead and ran from the room.
The old man stood where she had left him, his hands working behind his back, his brows knotted into thick cords, his eyes fixed on the ground.
Doubt, almost remorse, were depicted on his countenance with an intensity almost terrible. He sank into a chair, and, covering his face with his hands, seemed lost in a dream. Presently the door opened, and Doris, like a vision of loveliness, stood in her white satin dress before him.