She looked up in astonishment at the sincerity of his tone, her heart tingling with a new emotion of delicious uncertainty. What if, after all, he had wanted some one in the way she wanted him? What if the some one were herself and he had been afraid to aspire to a woman of her wealth and position? She asked this without any feeling of conceit, for one who loves always dreams he sees signs of favor in the one beloved.
“Then you have wanted some one?” All her manner, her voice, her eyes expressed sympathy. She was the soul of tact and no mean actress at the same time.
Code, still in the depth of reminiscence and averted happiness, scarcely heard her, but he answered
“Yes, I have.” Then, coming to full realization of the confession, he colored and laughed uneasily. “But let’s not talk of such personal things any more,” he added. “You must think me very foolish to be mooning about like this.”
“Can I help you?” she asked, half suffocated by the question. “Perhaps there might be something I could do that would bring the one you want to you.”
It was the crucial point in the conversation. She held her breath as she awaited his answer. She knew he was no adept at the half-meanings and near-confessions of flirtation, and that she could depend upon his words and actions to be genuine.
He looked at her calmly without the additional beat of a pulse. His color had died down and left him pale. He was considering.
“You have done much for me,” he said at last, “and I shall never forget it, but in this matter even you could not help me. Only the Almighty could do it by direct intervention, and I don’t believe He works that way in this century,” Code smiled faintly.
As for Elsa, she felt the grip as of an icy hand upon her heart. It was some one else that he meant. Was it possible that all her carefully planned campaign had come to this miserable failure? Had she come this far only to lose all?