"You would have been, if you'd seen him Saturday, as I did."
"And if——"
"If—if—if!" interrupted Susan impatiently. "An' there that poor blind boy sets an' thinks an' thinks an' thinks, an' longs for some one that loves him to smooth his pillow an' rumple his hair, an'——"
"Susan, I'm going to do it. I'M GOING TO DO IT!" vowed the girl, springing to her feet, her eyes like stars, her cheeks like twin roses.
"Do what?" demanded Susan.
"I don't know. But, I'm going to do SOMETHING. Anyhow, whatever I do I know I'm going to—to defy the 'properties,'" she babbled deliriously, as she hurried from the room, looking very much as if she were trying to hide from herself.
Four days later, Keith, in his favorite chair, sat on the south piazza. It was an April day, but it was like June, and the window behind him was wide open into the living-room. He did not hear Dorothy Parkman's light step up the walk. He did not know that she had paused at sight of him sitting there, and had put her hand to her throat, and then that she had almost run, light-footed, into the house, again very much as if she were trying to run away from herself. But he did hear her voice two minutes later, speaking just inside the window.
At the first sentence he tried to rise, then with a despairing gesture as if realizing that flight would be worse than to remain where he was, he sat back in his chair. And this is what he heard Dorothy Parkman say:
"No, no, Mr. Burton, please—I—I can't marry you. You'll have to understand. No—don't speak, don't say anything, please. There's nothing you could say that—that would make a bit of difference. It's just that I—I don't love you and I do—love somebody else—Keith, your son—yes, you have guessed it. Oh, yes, I know we don't seem to be much to each other, now. But—but whether we ever are, or not, there can't ever be—any one else. And I think—he cares. It's just that—that his pride won't let him speak. As if his dear eyes didn't make me love him—
"But I mustn't say all this—to you. It's just that—that I wanted you to surely—understand. And—and I must go, now. I—must—go!"