Dunham was not asleep. His half-amused, half-piqued thoughts rambled on. This niece of Judge Trent's was certainly an odd girl, with her preoccupations, her mysterious sacks of treasures, and her bottle of blackish fluid, her moods, her laughter, and her tears.
The fastidious Edna had been annoyed by last night's scene in the kitchen. Well, it was a strange scene. John recalled it now. He remembered quite well every word uttered by the rosy witch over her bubbling miniature caldron. She was concocting a philtre to make a girl happy,—herself. She had confided to the warm-hearted Irishwoman that she was in love, and condemned her stupidity that it had not been love at first sight; but since it had not been, the flame was likely to burn the longer. Didn't Jenny think so? And Jenny most reassuringly had thought so.
What sort of talks and beliefs had the girl been accustomed to in companionship with her ne'er-do-well father? Whatever her experiences, her atmosphere was one of strength and innocence. As this thought came to him with conviction, an involuntary desire to look at the subject of it caused his eyes suddenly to unclose.
The effect was electrical. Sylvia, from studying the features and hair, the outlines of throat and chest and shoulders of her vis-a-vis, had unconsciously forgotten the model in the man, had forgotten Edna Derwent. The ideal, never long absent from her thought since that morning at Hotel Frisbie, was now filling her material vision in utter unconsciousness of her scrutiny. She leaned slightly toward him in her absorption, and a woman's heart was in her eyes and tenderly curved lips when John's gaze suddenly encountered hers.
The social diplomacy which from boyhood it had been his second nature to practice stood him in good stead now.
In that instant he saw Sylvia's start and withdrawal, he felt his own color mount to match hers, but he continued absolutely motionless except for letting his eyelids fall again.
"Do forgive me," he said after a moment, in nasal and languid apology. "I hadn't an idea I should fall asleep. I'll wake up in a minute. I'm worse than a kid taken out in its baby carriage when I strike this air. Might as well chloroform me."
Sylvia was leaning against the mast, trying to swallow the heart that had leaped to her throat.
"Don't try to wake up," she replied after a time. She caught at his words as consolation, yet that look had been so deliberate, so wide. Could it be—
"My father taught me to sketch a little when I was a child," she went on, her breath still getting between her words most inconveniently. "I was wishing I had a pencil just then. You were being such a—such a docile model."