She resumed. Now her eyes were on the keyboard, and she was having no easy task of it finding the right keys and striking the right chords, all the time conscious of his steady penetrating gaze. "It's nearing the time you fixed for going East," he began.
She nodded slowly in time to the music. He was so seated that the piano prevented his seeing any of her but her bare shoulders and graceful head with its masses of auburn hair, against a background of palms and ferns. "I'm glad the spring is so backward this year," she said; for, she had learned not to fear his misunderstanding, if she spoke out her thoughts. "If it were really spring with the grounds all in bloom and the windows wide— It makes me sad to think of that."
She had thought she might perhaps soften his contempt by reminding him that there was another and a less repellant side to her character. But as soon as the words were out, she wished she had not spoken; it was useless to try to make him think well of her. He was probably regretting that he had let her have Winchie. She looked appealingly toward him, hoping he would speak—say anything—no matter what, so long as it broke that silence of painful suspense. When she could endure it no longer, she suddenly burst out: "You've come to ask me to leave at once. You are right, I'll go as soon as I can pack."
"On the contrary," said he, eyes still intent upon the tall shafts of flame leaping toward the cavernous blackness of the chimney. "I've come to ask you not to go at all."
His tone was calm and self-controlled. It contained no suggestion of ominous meaning; nor did his face.
"I—I don't understand," she ventured, nervously.
"I want to propose," explained he, in the same deliberate way, "that we give each other another trial."
There was no mistaking his meaning. In the sudden reversal from all she had been expecting and fearing, her thoughts became mere chaos. Hands resting upon the keys, she sat silent, rigid—waiting.
He turned his chair, leaned toward her, his elbows on his knees. "Is the idea—is it—distasteful to you?" he asked.
Carefully, with her tapering fingers she measured chords without striking them. "Not distasteful," said she.