Corinne, if not as experienced as her mother, was possessed of those intuitive faculties which distinguish many neglected children. She knew after the first week that neither the colonel nor Viola would blow hot and cold upon her little moods. Still, there was a prudent reticence in her acceptance of their overtures, and she took the colonel’s first gifts of fruit and candy with a wary apprehension of the next day’s rebuffs. But they never came, and the prematurely grave child and the lonely old man established friendly relations, grateful and warming to both. Finally, when the other boarders drove the colonel back into the citadel of his wounded pride, the tie between them was strengthened. Each felt the isolation of the other as a secret bond of sympathy and understanding.
The colonel, sore, homesick, repulsed on every side, turned to the child with a pitiful eagerness, and lavished upon her the discarded affections of his hungry heart. He greeted her entrance into Viola’s sitting-room—a noiseless entrance, hugging up to her breast her doll and her pet black kitten—with expressions of joy that to an outsider would have seemed laughably extravagant. But they were not, for she had come to represent to him tenderness, tolerance, appreciation. He felt at ease and contented with her, for he knew that she would not criticize him, would never find fault with him. She flattered and sustained the last remnant of his once buoyant vanity. He was not afraid that her eyes would meet his with a sad reproach. On the contrary, their absorbed unconsciousness was one of the most soothing and delightful things about her. Corinne would not have cared what he did. She liked him for himself, and accepted him unmurmuringly as he was.
It was holiday-time, and she spent many afternoons in the colonel’s society, generally squatted on the floor in Viola’s sitting-room. She spoke little, but had the appearance of listening to all the old man said, and at times made solemnly sagacious comments. He, on his part, talked to her as if she had been a woman, expatiating to her on the strange capriciousness of affection that marked her sex. Once or twice he alluded sadly to the apparent estrangement between himself and his daughter.
“Seems almost as if she didn’t like me, Corinne; doesn’t it?” he asked anxiously, watching the child, who was trying to put her doll’s skirt on the kitten.
“I don’t think so,” Corinne responded gravely, holding the cat on its hind legs while she shook down the skirt; “I think she likes you a lot.”
“What makes you think that? She doesn’t ever talk to me much, or tell me things, the way she used.”
“She doesn’t talk to anybody much,” said Corinne. “Mr. Nelson said she was the most awful quiet girl he ever knew.” Here the cat gave a long, protesting mew, and Corinne’s attention became concentrated on its toilet.
“She usen’t to be quiet like that. She was the brightest girl! You ought to have seen her, Corinne—just like a picture, and always laughing.”
“She don’t laugh much now,” said Corinne; “I don’t think I ever heard her laugh—not once. Keep quiet now, deary”—coaxingly to the cat; “you’re nearly dressed.”
“And all because I only tried to please her. I just tried to do my best to make her happy. There’s no good trying to please a woman. You’re all the same. Be kind to them, be loving, break your heart trying to give them pleasure—and that’s the way it is.”