'I will conduct you to a safe hiding-place to-night, and Brenda will join you to-morrow morning,' said Trist in a tone full of concentrated energy, though his eyes never lighted up. 'Be quick and decide, because Brenda is alone upstairs with ... him.'
Mrs. Wylie's eyebrows moved imperceptibly beneath her veil. She thought she saw light.
Mrs. Huston played nervously with a tassel that was hanging from her dainty muff for the space of a moment; then she raised her eyes, not to Trist's face, but to Mrs. Wylie's. Instantly she lowered them again.
'I will go with you!' she said, almost inaudibly, and stood blushing like a schoolgirl between two lovers.
Mrs. Wylie raised her head, sniffing danger like an old hen when she hears the swoop of long wings above the chicken-yard. Her eyes turned from Alice Huston's face, with a slow impatience almost amounting to contempt, and rested upon Theodore Trist's meek orbs, raised to meet hers meaningly. Then somehow her honest tongue found itself tied, and she said nothing at all. The flood of angry words subsided suddenly from her lips, and she waited for the further commands of this soft-spoken, soft-stepping, soft-glancing man, with unquestioning obedience.
He moved slightly, looked down at the bag in his hand, and then glanced comprehensively from the top of Mrs. Huston's smart bonnet to the sole of her small shoe. He could not quite lay aside the old campaigner, and the beautiful woman was moved by a strange suspicion that this young man was not admiring her person, but considering whether her attire were fit for a long journey on a November evening.
'Come, then!' he said.
Still Mrs. Huston hesitated.
Suddenly she appeared to make up her mind, for she went up two steps and kissed Mrs. Wylie with hysterical warmth. This demonstration seemed to recall Trist to a due sense of social formula. He returned, and shook hands gravely with the widow.
'Go to Brenda!' he whispered, and the matron bowed her head.