"Exactly. No one else, perhaps, has had my opportunities for understanding you. Now, on the basis of our long acquaintance, and because of my deep attachment to yourself and your father, I wish to urge you to reconsider your intention of making any other call this afternoon."
"I shall have to use my own judgement," she returned, without flinching. "I am in great perplexity—you don't know."
"I do know," he retorted, "and perhaps the time has come for me to tell you so. A wanderer like myself comes across many unexpected things in the course of his peregrinations. Shall I tell you how, while looking for some records of my family in an old New York church, secretly indulging the genealogical mania I am wont to deride, I lighted upon a record I did not think to find—the record of the marriage of one who is very dear to me?"
"Then you knew all the time! I almost thought so—often."
"Not all the time," he corrected, "though for what seemed a very long time, while I waited for the bolt to fall on your father's unsuspecting head. Perhaps, Felicity, you will accept it as a proof of my devotion to you that I did not consider it my duty to enlighten your father. If I can be of any assistance to you even now—but I am an outsider. I merely wish to assure you of my unswerving—friendship."
"Don't make me cry," she protested, with a shaken little laugh. She bit her lip and winked back the starting tears. "Father knows now—and you know—and I am going to tell Mr. Leigh."
"Well, well," he answered, "I say no more." His eyes searched her face earnestly, and he began to shake her hands, which he had retained in his own from the time she put them there. "You must redeem your promise to come and see me again, I hope under happier circumstances." He flung open the door with suspicious haste, and bowed her out in his ceremonious way.
She found herself facing the same beckoning firelight, with the same reassuring silence about her. In addition she felt a new comfort and an unexpected permission from the recent interview. Without further hesitation, she stepped across the threshold and quietly closed the door behind her.
She was still somewhat shaken by the emotions she had just experienced, but this change of scene brought different sensations and dried her tears. Her first feeling was one of intense relief. Here she was, whether wisely or not she could not tell, but she was glad she had come. She advanced to the centre of the room, and gazed about her at the objects that were his. The first thing that always struck her in any room was its pictures, and here she saw a number of famous astronomers and mathematicians, stiffly arranged in chronological order. There were no Venetian scenes or cathedrals, but above the fireplace she saw an etching of the library of his alma mater, surmounted by his college flag.
What a contrast to the room she called her own! The very atmosphere was different, for mingled with the odour of burning logs she detected a suggestion of tobacco smoke, so faint that only a woman would have perceived it. The simplicity of the place, the absence of ornate decoration, was like him, she reflected. Artistic herself to an exceptional degree, she had never cared for men who possessed an equal knowledge of such things; they were either professional artists, or somehow less than manly.