“Brought me back!” He pressed her open palm against his mouth. “To you, dearest, wherever you were, I should always be coming back. How could I help it? Hulloa! That’s fine.” His eyes had caught the picture. “Where did you——”
“All the while you were angry with me I was having it painted for you. But I shan’t be giving it to you now.” She glanced sideways at him with mocking tenderness. “You won’t need it. It was to be a farewell present to some one who had changed his mind.”
He drew her face down. “My darling, my mind will never change.”
Suddenly she broke from his embrace and glanced back into the room, raising her voice. “You know it’s Teddy that I’m going to marry, if ever I do marry. Why, we almost thought we’d get married this morning. Come here, my littlest lover. Don’t look so downhearted. Champions are allowed to kiss their ladies’ hands. Didn’t Hal tell you? Well, they are, and you may if you like.”
Teddy didn’t kiss her hand. He cuddled down on the hearthrug with his head against her knees, feeling himself like Love in the picture, forever shut out. The soul had vanished from his glorious day. He was hoping that Hal would go; she didn’t seem to belong to him while he stayed. Lunch went by, tea came, and still he stayed. A blind forlornness filled his mind that he couldn’t be a man. In spite of her caresses he felt in his heart that all her promises had been pretense.
Not until night had fallen and she got into the cab to take him home did he have her to himself. The lamps stared out on the snow like two great eyes. Once again it was a faery world of mysterious hints and shadows.
She drew him to her. She realized the dull hopelessness of the child and wondered what would be his estimate of her, if he remembered, when he became a man. Would he think that he had been tampered with and made the plaything of a foolish woman’s idleness? She wanted to provide against that. She wanted him always to think well of her. She felt almost humble in the presence of his accusing silence. She had a strange longing to apologize.
“It hasn’t—hasn’t been quite our day, Teddy—not quite the day we’d planned. I’m dreadfully sorry; I wouldn’t have had it happen this way for the world.”
He didn’t stir—didn’t say a word. She made her voice sound as if she were crying; he wasn’t certain that she wasn’t crying.
“You’re not angry with me, are you? It’s so difficult being grown up. Sooner or later every one gets angry, even Hal. But I thought that my littlest lover would be different—that, though he didn’t understand, he’d still like me and believe that I’d tried——”