‘I am proud to be approved of,’ he answered, trying to speak lightly.
The grave serving-man brought in the wine, which proved worthy of the hostess’s praise. Paul was grateful for it, for it helped to steady his shaken nerve. He felt pretty much as he imagined a man might feel who was learning to stand under fire.
‘It was kind of you,’ he said, ‘to give me this one hour to myself. I shall try to learn my lesson in it I want to assure you how much I have laid your injunction to heart, and to promise you that from this time forth you shall be implicitly obeyed. When I wrote that wild letter to you at Venders I had not the faintest hope of your forgiveness. I need not tell you how I thank you for it, how I shall strive to show my gratitude. But, indeed, you are my Anthea, Gertrude, and may command me anything.’
‘Another man would not have found forgiveness, Paul,’ she answered, turning away her head, and looking downward. ‘I do not deny to you now that I was deeply amazed, and, at first, humiliated. Then for a time I was angry, and I had to ask myself of what indiscretion I had been guilty to lay me open to the receipt of such a letter from my dearest friend. But we women are weak creatures where the affections are concerned, and I felt that I could not afford to lose you, Paul. You will not make it necessary for me to lose you?’
‘No,’ he declared. ‘No spoken word of mine shall hurt you. God knows what you have been to me since first I met you.’ She raised her hand against him and looked up with a glance of appeal. ‘Oh, surely I may say this!’ he urged. ‘I have been through dark days, Gertrude. I am young, and reputation and fortune are calling to me, and I have put a millstone about my neck, and but for your friendship I should have broken my heart.’
‘Paul,’ she said, ‘my poor boy! My poor, dear boy! I think I would give my life if I could comfort you.’
‘You do comfort me,’ he answered. ‘You are the one comfort I have. I shall learn in time to think of you as if you were a saint in heaven.’
‘Oh!’ she purred, ‘you dear, simple-souled enthusiast! Don’t you know yet—haven’t you found it out, that simple truth?—that when a man has relegated a living woman to the position of a saint in heaven he has ceased to care about her? I am not going to turn you into a sanctified figure.’
‘I should scarcely look for that,’ said Paul, with a momentary gleam of humour.
‘I am going to keep you for a living, large-brained, human-hearted friend, and I hope that if we do not see too much of each other, we may both grow content with that arrangement.’