"No," he said gravely, "I just loved George's wife, and I do still, God help me!"
She half rose; but his look held her. "I hoped not," she said almost defiantly. "I hoped that that girl might have——"
Watts, however, steadily met her glance. "Sard Bogart," he said, "is, well, she's——" he broke off, looking earnestly at his friend. "That girl is going to need friends," said the lawyer decidedly. He handed the locket back to Eleanor, and with a curious look, half awe, half ache, saw it slip into its place. He stopped, something trivial on his lips. He was glad at Eleanor's next remark.
"I wish I might help her." Her voice was calm, sympathetic.
The lawyer was a little dubious, a little uncertain. "I don't know; I've told her about you," he hesitated. Eleanor half shrank and Watts added coolly, "That you are my dearest friend." He stood up thoughtfully. "Unless you are going to ask me to lunch, I must go. Are you going to ask me to lunch?" he asked her.
The old drama began instantly between them. The masterful, pursuing man and the retreating, doubting woman. The thing itself took hold of them, but resolutely, like people tempered to the grave concerns of life, they put it aside.
Eleanor shook her head. "I am not going to ask you," she said gently.
"Punishment, I suppose," murmured Watts.
There was a moment's silence. She also rose and he thought that in her white gown with the rows of blue larkspur and the canterbury bells as background she was a wondrous fair thing that had almost too much power over him. The man's mind flew to the bright impulse of the girl they spoke of. Eleanor saw this and her hand went out to his. "Bring Sard to see me," she said it very kindly, "and that funny little Cousin Minga. I used to see a good deal of the 'Mede and the Persian'; they are dears." She looked at him, casting about for something that should give him comfort. "Next week you take up the O'Brien case, don't you? Tell me, has the boy any chance? Can you save him? Is it to be for life?"
Watts turned; he looked long and silently at the sun descending, at all the colors and life of the flowers about them, at the mountains standing like great blocks of sapphire beyond the green fields awash with daisies. Suddenly, he pointed to a little cedar tree reaching its infant head close by their side.