“Come, then,” he said, “you shall play for me. While you play, if we mask our expressions, we can talk of what we choose. Outwardly, to deceive the man in the bushes, we must act a part. I'm an old friend. I've dropped in unexpectedly. You've provided me with supper. While I eat, we chatter and laugh. You sit at the piano and sing for me occasionally. When the hour for Santa's arrival is past, I take my leave. If you're brave, we can carry the farce through. Are you game?”
For answer she picked up the tray and stepped into the room, smiling back at him as he followed.
“I'm your humble servant, as always, Mr. Hind-wood, but I have only two hands and they're occupied. If you'll bring up that table—yes, set it before the fire. That's right. You must be comfortable, if I'm to sing for you.”
II
She won't come now.”
The words reached him in a sigh. The pale hands fluttered from the keyboard. The fair head dropped. Almost instantly she straightened herself, banishing her appearance of weariness. “Don't think that I'm showing the white feather. It's only that I'm exhausted. She won't come now. I'm sure of it.” Then, bending forward with a nervous tremor, “I daren't look round. Has he gone?”
Hindwood pushed back his chair from before the hearth. For the moment he did not answer. He was striving to restore the spell which the intrusion of her fear had broken. Glancing at her sideways, he regarded her quietly where she sat at the piano in her widow's garb. Through the window at her back he caught a glimpse of the garden, shadowy and patched with moonlight. Above the silence he heard the rumble of waves, sifting the pebbles on the shore. Who was she, this woman who possessed the magic to enchant him? Who had been her husband? What kind of man? Had she loved him? How long since he had died? There were so many questions.
She had persuaded him into following her, well knowing that he believed her to be Santa. She had met his discovery of her impersonation with a threat. When the luck was all in her favor, with the panic of a stricken conscience she had thrown in her hand. For the past two hours, in this cozy room, she had surrounded him with shy intimacies of affection, to the end that the unseen spectator, listening outside the panes, might be beguiled. Apparently the deception had succeeded; the spectator had given no sign. It had succeeded too well for Hindwood. It had roused in him the longing that, behind her pretense of friendship, there might lurk a genuine emotion of liking. He had tried to forget that the scene was stage-set. He had wanted to believe that it was real.
“Has he gone?”
There was a break in her voice.