At the end of the hallway this intelligent young man was not surprised to encounter Kate, and she made no pretense of not having waited for him. Yet, as he approached, she moved to pass by.
“’T is althered opinions you hold about the O’Mahonys and the O’Dalys,” she said, with studied coldness and a haughty carriage of her dark head.
He caught her sleeve as she would have passed him.
“See here,” he whispered, eagerly, “don’t you make a goose of yourself. I’ve told more lies and acted more lies generally this afternoon for you than I would for all the other women on earth boiled together. Sh-h! Just you keep mum, and we’ll see you through this thing slick and clean.”
“I want no lies told for me, or acted either,” retorted Kate.
Her tone was proud enough still, but the lines of her face were relenting.
“No, I don’t suppose for a minute you do,” he murmured back, still holding her sleeve, and with his other hand on the latch. “You’re too near an angel for that. I tell you what: Suppose you just start in and do as much praying as you can, to kind o’ balance the thing. It’ll all be needed; for as far as I can see now, I’ve got some regular old whoppers to come yet.”
Then the young man released the sleeve, snatched up the hand at the end of that sleeve, kissed it, and was gone before Kate could say another word.
When she had thought it all over, through hours of seclusion in her room, she was still very much at sea as to what that word would have been had time been afforded her in which to utter it.