“Dark-haired girls never had any chance with you, did they? You told me that long ago, after Fiesole. I remembered because—because——”
“I was a boy then, and was clumsy.”
“But you spoke the truth, though you did say that for sisters black hair was the prettiest in the world. It hurt because at that time I fancied—you can guess what.”
“You never showed it.”
“You never looked for it—never asked for it.”
I knew to what she referred. It was on the night of my sudden return from the Red House because the Spuffler had lost our money. I was sitting at this window as I was now sitting. A tap at the door had startled me; then a timid voice had said, “It’s only Ruthita.” She had crept in noiselessly as a shadow. Her dear arms went about my neck, drawing down my face. “Oh, Dannie, I’m so sorry,” she had whispered; “I’ve never missed welcoming you home ever since you went to school.” She had nestled against me in the dark, her face looking frailer and purer than ever. She had slipped on a long blue dressing-gown, I remember, and her black hair hung about her shoulders like a cloud. Just below the edge of the gown her pale feet twinkled. I noticed that a physical change had come over her. Then I had realized for the first time that she was different as I was different—we were no longer children. I had fallen to wondering whether the same wistful imaginings, exquisite and alluring, had come to her. With an overwhelming reverence, I had become aware of the strange fascination of her appealing beauty. In the confessing that followed I had told her of my jilting by Fiesole, and had spoken those stupid words about loving only golden hair. How wounding I had been in my boyish egotism! And that was not the last time I had wounded her in my blindness.
Scene after scene came back to me—into each I read a new meaning in the light of what she had told me: the Snow Lady’s hints before I sailed for America; Ruthita’s appeal for my protection against Halloway, and her sudden acceptance of him directly she heard that I was with Vi at Sheba.
“Ruthie, all this was very long ago; so many things have happened since then, there can be no harm in talking about it. You wanted me right up to the last—and I was too selfish to know it.”
“Right up to the last,” she whispered, and I knew she meant right up to now.
“And this—and this is what your husband has guessed?”