“Oh, you’re very good!” Jane’s tone was a little impatient, in spite of herself. “But you do misjudge him—to-night. Why, he’s just his old self—as you’ve never known him. Of course, I’ll stay by him—and I understand. But—his temptation has always been when he was blue and unhappy, not when he was on the top wave of joy, as he is to-night—as he deserves to be——” Her voice broke a little, she turned away. She herself was keyed higher than she knew; she simply couldn’t bear to have Robert Black, or anybody else, distrust Cary to-night—dear, wonderful Cary, with his shining eyes and his adorable smile, her beloved brother and his genius both restored to her.
Black’s low voice came after her: “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to hurt your happiness to-night, of all nights. I only—want you to take care of him as——”
But she was off, back to her guests, cutting him short, with only a nod and half smile back at him, which showed him that she thought him wrong—and a little cruel, too.
She was surer than ever that he had been mistaken when they were all gone, their congratulations on Cary’s work still ringing in her ears. He threw himself upon the couch with a long laughing breath and a prolonged stretch of the arms. “Smoke and ashes, but I’m tired!” he declared. “I’ll stop and chin with you about ten minutes, and then it’s me for bed.”
He seemed hardly to listen while she told him how she felt about his work and the evening, how she knew they all felt. She could see that he was all at once very sleepy and exhausted, and when, before the ten minutes were barely up, he rose and stumbled across the room, declaring that he couldn’t hold out another second, she smiled to herself as she put her arm on his shoulder and insisted on his good-night kiss. He had to cut a yawn in two to give it to her. This tired boy in any danger? Hardly! If he had still been excited and overstrung she might have had fears for him, but now—why, he would be asleep before he could get his clothes off—that was what was most likely to happen, after these three days and nights of consuming labour. She would look in, by and by, and make sure that, as in his boyish days, he had not thrown himself across the bed without undressing at all, and gone off into a deep slumber from which her sisterly ministrations would not wake him.
She never knew what actually happened that night. She was a long time herself in making ready for bed, and so busy were her thoughts that for an hour she quite forgot her resolve to make sure of Cary’s safety. Then, just to prove that Black was unreasonable in his fears, she went to Cary’s door, opened it very gently, and saw in the bed his motionless figure, evidently in as deep a sleep as any one could wish. She went back to her own room with a curious sense of injury upon her. Why had the minister tried to alarm her when there was so little need? Hadn’t she had anxious hours enough?
Within a quarter of an hour the door of the shop very softly opened, and Cary Ray let himself out into the silent little street. His coat-collar was up, his hat pulled over his eyes; he stole away on noiseless feet. If Jane could have seen then the eyes beneath that sheltering hat-brim she would have understood. Sleep? They had never been farther from it, so glitteringly sleepless were they.
But Robert Black saw those eyes—and he had already understood. As Cary slipped round the corner he ran straight into a tall figure coming his way. With a low exclamation of dismay he would have rushed by and away, but Black wheeled and was at his side, walking with him.
“Out for a walk, Ray?” said the low, friendly voice he had come to know so well. “I know how that is—I’ve often done it myself. Nothing like the crisp night air for taking that boiling blood out of a fellow’s brain and sending it over his body, where it belongs. May I walk with you? I’m still abnormally keyed-up myself over that play of yours. No wonder you can’t settle to sleep.”
Well, Cary couldn’t get away, and he knew he couldn’t. As well try to escape an officer’s handcuff if he had been caught stealing as that kind, inexorable offer of comradeship through his temptation. He knew Black well enough by now to know that his standing by meant that he simply wouldn’t let Cary’s temptation have a chance—it might as well slink away and leave him, for it couldn’t get to him past Robert Black’s defense.