She stopped. The memory of those days of encouragement and promise seemed to shut off her voice. She stared out of the window as if she were looking back at them, her face set in an expression of brooding pain. I thought she was going to cry, but when she spoke her voice showed an angry petulance far from the mood of tears.
“I’d never have got such big ideas if he hadn’t given them to me. I must come on here and study, not waste myself on little towns and little people. Go for the big prize—that was what I was made for.” She suddenly turned on me and flung out what seemed the bitterest of her grievance, “He made me do it. He insisted on my coming—got Vignorol to take me, paid for my lessons. It’s his doing, all this.”
So that was the situation. That explained it all. I was immensely relieved. She might be in love with him, but if he was not in love with her (and he certainly gave no evidences of it), it would be easy to get rid of him. He was frankly discouraged about her, would probably hail with relief any means of escaping the continued expense of her lessons. The instinct that had brought me up-stairs was a good one after all.
“Couldn’t you”—I felt my way carefully for the ground was delicate—“couldn’t you put yourself in some one else’s hands. Get some one else to—I don’t know what the word is—”
She eyed me with an intent watching look that was disconcerting.
“Be my backer?” she suggested.
I nodded.
“No, I could not,” she said, in a loud violent tone. “Go back on the man who tried to make me, dragged me out of obscurity and gave me my chance? Umph!” She turned away with a scornful movement: “That would be a great thing to do.”
The change was so quick that it bewildered me. The cudgel with which she had been beating Masters was now wielded in his defense. The ground was even more delicate than I had thought, and silence was wisdom till I saw what was coming next. I rose from the rocky cushions and moved to the window.
The light in the little room had grown dim, the keys of the piano gleaming whitely from their dusky corner. With a deep sigh Miss Harris walked to the sofa, threw herself full length on it and lay still, a tall dark shape looking up at the ceiling.