“Why do you try to see her? If you cannot see her openly, why do you try to see her at all? And when only to think she saw you in a dream made her tremble and faint and lock the door.”
If she had looked up as she spoke, the words would have died upon her lips. For the agony in his face had become pitiful to see. For a few moments there was dead silence in the room. Although she wanted to go, she felt that she could not leave him like this, and she wanted to know whether her injunctions had had any effect. She was startled by a hollow laugh, and looking up, she met the eyes of Mr. Banks fixed upon her with an expression which seemed to make her suddenly conscious how young and ignorant she was, and how mad to suppose that she could have any influence upon the conduct of older men and women.
“I ought not to have come,” she said with a hot blush in her cheeks, “I am too ignorant and too stupid to do anything but harm when I want to do some good to my friends. But please do not laugh at me; I only spoke to you to try to save Mrs. Dale, whom I love, from any more trouble.”
“Whom you love! Do you love her too?” said Mr. Banks, with the same change to tenderness which she had noticed in his tone once before. “Well, little one, then you have done your friend some good after all; for I promise you I will not try to see her again.”
Mabin was filled with compunction. Mr. Banks did not talk like a wicked man. She longed to put down his unconventional behavior to eccentricity merely; but this was hard, very hard to do. At any rate she had obtained from him a definite promise, and she tried to get another.
“And—please don’t think me impertinent—but wouldn’t it be better if you went away from here? You know there is always the risk of her seeing you, while you live so near, or of finding out something about you. Please don’t think me impertinent; but really, I think, after what I have seen, that if she were to meet you suddenly, and know that she was not dreaming, it would kill her.”
Again his face contracted with pain. Mabin, looking down, went on:
“Remember all she has to suffer. When that old woman—an old lady with a hard face—came to see her, and scolded her——”
Mabin stopped. An exclamation on the part of Mr. Banks had made her glance at him; and she was astonished to see, in the hard look of anger which his features had assumed, a likeness, an unmistakable likeness, to the “cat.”
“Oh!” cried the girl involuntarily.