"Oh, no, no—I mustn't, I can't! Why, of course I can't, Mr. Denby," fluttered the girl, in a panic of startled embarrassment. "I'm sure you—you don't want me to."
"But I do. Listen!" He threw another quick glance at the absorbed children as he reached out and took possession of her hand. "It all came to me, back there at the window—the dreariness, the emptiness of—everything, without you. And I saw then what you've been to me every day this past week. How I've watched for you and waited for you, and how everything I did and said and had was just—something for you. And I knew then that I—I loved you. You see, I—I never loved any one before,"—the boyish red swept to his forehead as he laughed whimsically,—"and so I—I didn't recognize the symptoms!" With the lightness of his words he was plainly trying to hide the shake in his voice. "Helen, you—will?"
"Oh, but I—I—!" Her eyes were frightened and pleading.
"Don't you care at all?"
She turned her head away.
"If you don't, then won't you let me make you care?" he begged. "You said you had no one now to care—at all; and I care so much! Won't you let—"
Somewhere a door shut.
With a low cry Helen Barnet pulled away her hand and sprang to her feet. She was down on the rug with the children, very flushed of face, when Mrs. Allen appeared in the library doorway.
"Oh, here you are!" Mrs. Allen frowned and spoke a bit impatiently. "I've been hunting everywhere for you. I supposed you were in the nursery. Won't you put the boys into fresh suits? I have friends calling soon, and I want the children brought to the drawing-room when I ring, and left till I call you again."
"Yes, ma'am."