CHAPTER XXIII
On hearing the soft tap of Babiole's fingers on the door of my study, there had sprung up in me quite suddenly a feeling that my anchor was gone, and the tempest of human passion which I had controlled for so long burst out within me with a violence which made me afraid of myself. There, on the table before me, lay the eloquent relics of my rejected suit to the woman I had tried to love. And here, shut out from me only by the scarcely-closed door, was the woman I loved so dearly without the trying, that just that faint sound which told me she was near thrilled through every fibre of my body as the musician's careless fingers sweep the keys of his instrument in a lightly-touched prelude before he makes it sing and throb with any melody he pleases. I had sprung to my feet and begun to toss my returned letters one by one with shaking hands into the fire, when I heard Babiole's voice behind me.
I turned abruptly, and it seemed to myself almost defiantly. But no sooner had I given one glance at the slender figure dressed in some plain dark stuff and one into the little pale face than all the tumult within me began to calm down, and the roaring, ramping, raging lion I had felt a moment before transformed himself gradually before the unconscious magic of my fairy's eyes into the mild and meek old lamb he had always been with her.
'You seem very busy, Mr. Maude,' said she, smiling.
Surely it was my very witch herself again, only a little thinner and whiter, who spoke to me thus in the old sweet voice, and held out her hand with the half-frank, half-shy demureness of those bygone, painful-pleasant days when we were 'engaged,' and when the new and proud discovery that she was 'grown-up' had given a delicious piquancy to her manner of taking her lessons! I shook hands with her, and she pointed to her old chair; as she took it quite simply and thus had the full light of the windows on her face, I noticed with surprise and pleasure that, in spite of the excitement of the night before, the atmosphere of her old home was already taking effect upon her, the listless expression she had worn in London was disappearing from her face, and the old childlike look which blue eyes were meant to wear was coming back into them again.
'You are better,' said I gently, taking no notice of her remark upon my occupation. 'You have been lazy, madam. I am sure you might very well have come down to breakfast. You had a good night, I suppose?'
Ta-ta, who had followed her into the room, pushed her nose lovingly into her old companion's hand, and Babiole hid a sensitively flushing face by bending low over the dog's sleek head. I think she must have found out that morning by the confusion in her room that something had happened the night before, the details of which she could not remember; perhaps also she had a vague remembrance of her expedition downstairs, and wanted to find out what I knew about it. But of course I knew nothing.
'Yes, I—I slept well—thank you. Only I had dreams.'
'Did you? Not bad ones, I hope?'
She glanced at me penetratingly, but could discover nothing, as I was fighting with To-to over the fragments of the morocco ring case.