“Oh yes, yes,” wearily; “but it isn’t enough by itself. There is something I have missed, and tonight I feel that it might outweight all the rest—something to do with being young, and careless, and fresh, and just nobody.”
Still looking at her with slightly puzzled, very kindly eyes, he answered simply, “I’m so sorry.”
She seemed to shrink away suddenly into her corner. The very simplicity of his sympathy, and the quiet, natural friendliness in his face, stirred some strange chord in her heart with a swift, unaccountable ache. He looked so big and strong and splendid there in the shadow, with his freshness and his charm; and she felt very brain-fagged and world-weary; and without in the least knowing why, or what led up to the desire, she wanted to feel his arms about her, and his freshness soothing her spirit.
And instead he was not even attempting to make love to her, not even flirting with her. Would any other man she knew have ridden beside her thus after the gentleness she had shown? Was that perhaps the very secret of his attraction? Or was it a physical allurement—the irresistible charm of bigness and strength, independent of anything else, drawing with its time-old sway?
She had no time to probe further, as the brougham stopped at her door. He handed her out with the deference so often met with in big men, remarking with an old-fashioned air that suited him to perfection:
“I’m afraid we have all tired you very much. It was good of you to come with us. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it.”
“Oh, indeed no; you refreshed me. Good-night. Stevens will run you home. Don’t forget Sunday”, and she moved away.
“It must be his bigness,” was her last thought as her head touched the pillow. “When I am used to it, no doubt the novelty will pass, and I shall find him merely boyish, and be rather bored.”
“I wonder if it is her dainty smallness,” Dudley was musing, away in his Bloomsbury lodging, feeling still, with a pleasant thrill, the touch of Doris’s small hand on his arm, and seeing again the upward, confiding expression in her wide blue eyes. “Odd that Hal should be so far astray in her judgment, when she is usually so clever; but if she knew her better she would change her mind.”
As for Hal herself, she hastily tumbled into bed, still chuckling in huge enjoyment over her evening.