“And you would be sure to tell him without his asking!” returned Joan. “But I dare not tell Constantine. Last week I could have asked him, because then, for your sake, I would have told a lie; but I dare not do that now.”
She did not tell him she gave her last penny to a beggar on the road the day he came, or that she often went for months without a coin in her pocket.
Cosmo was so indignant he could not speak; neither must he give shape in her hearing to what he thought of her brother. She looked anxiously in his face.
“Dear Cosmo,” she said, “do not be angry with me. I will borrow the money from the housekeeper. I have never done such a thing, but for your sake I will. You shall send it to-morrow.”
“No, no, dearest Joan!” cried Cosmo. “I will not hear of such a thing. I should be worse than Lord Mergwain to lay a feather on the burden he makes you carry.”
“I shouldn’t mind it much. It would be sweet to hurt my pride for your sake.”
“Joan, if you do,” said Cosmo, “I will not touch it. Don’t trouble your dear heart about it. God is taking care of the woman as well as of us. I will send it afterwards.”
They sat silent—Cosmo thinking how he was to escape from this poverty-stricken grandeur to his own humble heaven—as poor, no doubt, but full of the dignity lacking here. He knew the state of things at home too well to imagine his father could send him the sum necessary without borrowing it, and he knew also how painful that would be to him who had been so long a borrower ever struggling to pay.
Joan’s eyes were red with weeping when at length she looked pitifully in his face. Like a child he put both his arms about her, seeking to comfort her. Sudden as a flash came a voice, calling her name in loud, and as it seemed to Cosmo, angry tones. She turned white as the marble on which they sat, and cast a look of agonized terror on Cosmo.
“It is Constantine!” said her lips, but hardly her voice.