“I hear Annette coming. I—I’d like to go, Mrs. Cabot. Jack may be looking for me.”
She did not wait for the elevator, but hurried up the wide marble steps that led from gallery to gallery to the top of the house. Fast as she took them, however, distressing questions pursued her.
What was she to think—how conduct herself?
Looking into Jack’s living-room, she saw that the door into his bedroom still was closed. The calm-faced clock announced that it was not really time for him to have awakened. As she went toward her own chamber to wait, she heard the click of the elevator letting someone off at the third gallery, but did not glance up to see who it was. She wished to be alone—to think.
Once her own door was closed, however, she shrank from thinking. Rather than force herself to any immediate conclusion regarding the surprising developments of the last several minutes, she allowed her mind to rest, as it were, upon the thought of young Jack.
During the days which had accumulated into weeks since her entry into the Cabot home, her influence upon the boy had continued to be poured into the mold of their first hour. The household agreed that none of the many who had undertaken him had approached her success. Rather than the problem which he was said to have been to earlier governesses, he had become a revelation to her.
Although they continued to play “Turn-About” at times, she had ceased to rely upon games for the establishment of understanding between them. So long as Jack did what he knew to be right and fair, he and she might share enjoyment, even happiness. When he ceased, her disappointment in him spoiled their day. They consulted upon every item of their daily program subject to change. From play to text-books had been a gradual but sure transition. What at first had caused ruction, became a medium of pleasant companionship. Lessons learned under a “pal” instead of a task-mistress didn’t seem like lessons at all.
Dolores’ service was but what she would have given unrequited to the stunted human plant. Love had bloomed as her reward. The lad’s devotion to her had become a by-word in the house.
Only last evening, when she had slipped into his room to tell him good-night after the maid had left, he had overcome his prejudice against any show of affection sufficiently to lift his over-long arms about her neck.
“’Lores,” he had whispered half-ashamedly, “I have made up a nice name for you. I don’t wish to tell even you what it is. I’m afraid you’d make fun of it. It is just a little name for you that I save to think about when I’m trying to go to sleep.”