He was looking up at her with his soul in his eyes. Barron was not the man to hide or juggle with his love. It possessed him now and shone on his face. Mariposa’s eyes turned from it as from the scrutiny of something at once painful and holy. He laid his hand on hers on the rail.
“You know that,” he said, his deep voice shaken.
Her eyes dropped to the hands and she mechanically noticed how white her fingers looked between his large, brown ones. She drew them softly away, feeling his glance keen, impassioned and unwavering on her face.
“Something’s troubling you,” he continued in the same voice. “Why won’t you let me help you? You needn’t tell me what it is, but you might let me help you. What am I here for but to take care of you, and fight for you, and protect you?”
The words were indescribably sweet to the lonely girl. All the previous night she had tossed on her pillow haunted by terror of Essex and what he intended to do. She had felt herself completely helpless, and her uncertainty at what step he meant to take was torturing. For one moment of weakness she thought of pouring it all out to the man beside her, whose strong hand on her own had seemed symbolic of the grip, firm and fearless, he could take on the situation that was threatening her. Then she realized the impossibility of such a thing and drew back from the railing.
“You can’t help me,” she said; “no one can.”
He mounted a step and stretched his hand over the railing to try to detain her.
“But I can do one thing: I can always be here, here close to you, ready to come when you call me, either in trouble or for advice. If ever you want help, help of any kind, I’ll be here. And if you had need of me I think I’d know it, and no matter where I was, I’d come. Remember that.”
She had half turned away toward her door as he spoke, and now stood in profile, a tall figure, with her throat and wrists looking white as milk against the hard black line of her dress. She seemed a picture painted in few colors, her hair a coppery bronze, and her lips a clear, pale red, being the brightest tones in the composition.
“Will you remember?” he said.