It was not the answer he had expected. For an instant the blood left his face, his heart stood still.
Kate raised her head, and their eyes met.
There are narrow paths in life where one fatal step sends a man headlong. There are eyes in women’s heads as deep as the abyss below. Hers were wide open, with the fearless confidence of an affection she was big enough to give. He saw down into their depths, and read there—as they flashed toward him in intermittent waves over the barrier of the reserve she sometimes held—love, truth, and courage. To disturb these, even by the sympathy she longed to receive and he to give, might, he knew, endanger the ideal of that loyalty to another in her which he venerated most. To go behind it and break down the wall of that self-control of hers which held in check the unknown, untouched springs of her heart might loosen a flood that would wreck the only bark which could keep them both afloat on the troubled waters of life,—their friendship.
Sanford bent his head, raised her hand to his lips, kissed it reverently, and without a word walked slowly toward his chair.
As he regained his seat the butler pushed aside the light curtains of the veranda, and in his regulation monotone announced, “Miss Shirley, Major Slocomb, and Mr. Hardy.”
“My dear madam,” broke out the major in his breeziest manner, before Mrs. Leroy could turn to greet him, “what would life be in this bake-oven of a city but for the joy of yo’r presence? And Henry! You here, too? Do you know that that rascal Jack has kept me waiting for two hours while he took Helen for a five minutes’ walk round the square, or I would have been here long ago. Where are you, you young dog?” he called to Jack, who had lingered in the darkened hall with Helen.
“What’s the matter now, major?” inquired Jack, shaking hands with Mrs. Leroy, and turning again toward the Pocomokian. “I asked your permission. What would you have me do? Let Helen see nothing of New York, because you”—
“Do hush up, cousin Tom,” said Helen, pursing her lips at the major. “We stayed out because we wanted to, didn’t we, Jack? Don’t you think he is a perfect ogre, Mrs. Leroy?”
“He forgets his own younger days, my dear Miss Shirley,” she answered. “He shan’t scold you. Henry, make the major join you in a cigar, while I give Miss Helen a cup of coffee.”
“They are both forgiven, my dear madam, when so lovely an advocate pleads their cause,” said the Pocomokian grandiloquently, bowing low, his hand on his chest. “Thank you; I will join you,” and leaned over Sanford as he spoke, and lighted a cigar in the blue flame of the tiny silver lamp.