“Yes—but, Walter darling—do I lock you up and try to keep you from other people? Am I jealous and horrid, as she says I am? If you think so, tell me. Have I ever interfered with your pleasure? Am I always getting in your way?”
“Darling! What nonsense you talk sometimes!”
“No, but seriously, would you like me any better if I were like Katharine Lauderdale?”
The passionate eyes sought his, and there was a quick breath, half suppressed, as her hand ceased to caress his passive fingers.
“I couldn’t like you better—as you call it, sweetest,” answered Crowdie.
And again his soft laugh rippled up through perfumed air. With a movement that was almost girlish he dropped upon one elbow, and raising her diaphanous hand in his, tapped his own pale cheek with it. Hester laughed a little, too.
“Because if I thought you cared for Katharine Lauderdale—I’d—” She paused, and her fingers stroked his silky hair.
“What would you do to Katharine Lauderdale if you thought I cared for her?”
“I won’t tell you,” answered Hester, very low. “It would be something bad. Why did you sing for her if you don’t care for her?”
“I sang for everybody. Besides, it was so dull there. They’d been talking metaphysics and such rubbish, and there was a long pause, and aunt Maggie wanted me to. And then, when she said that I’d promised never to sing except for you, I didn’t choose to let them all believe it was true. Katharine begged me not to, I remember—when she was told that I’d made you a promise.”