He was taken with a sudden shame of his homely patronymic. “It’s an ugly name,” he said. “But you are right in trusting me. I would—I would do anything for you.... This is nothing.”
She caught at her breath. She did not care to ask why. But compared with Bechamel!—“We take each other on trust,” she said. “Do you want to know—how things are with me?”
“That man,” she went on, after the assent of his listening silence, “promised to help and protect me. I was unhappy at home—never mind why. A stepmother—Idle, unoccupied, hindered, cramped, that is enough, perhaps. Then he came into my life, and talked to me of art and literature, and set my brain on fire. I wanted to come out into the world, to be a human being—not a thing in a hutch. And he—”
“I know,” said Hoopdriver.
“And now here I am—”
“I will do anything,” said Hoopdriver.
She thought. “You cannot imagine my stepmother. No! I could not describe her—”
“I am entirely at your service. I will help you with all my power.”
“I have lost an Illusion and found a Knight-errant.” She spoke of Bechamel as the Illusion.
Mr. Hoopdriver felt flattered. But he had no adequate answer.