“Reckon she’s over saying good-by to your girl.”
My uncle stared at me—I must have been telling him things when he sat up with me.
Saying good-by! Then she probably had told her father that she was ready to go away. I started across the village square, sliding along in my huge slippers like a man walking on snow-shoes. I banged the big knocker on the front door of Judge Kingsley’s mansion and the maid admitted me. I was not bashful that day—I walked right into the sitting-room.
If I am any judge of expressions I did not interrupt any amiable and confidential tête-à-tête. The two girls rose and, after a few moments of constraint, Celene Kingsley asked me to be seated. I told her that I preferred to stand; I reckon that I wasn’t sure that I could sit down; the stiffness of the whole situation made me feel as if I did not have any joints.
“I have finished my errand,” declared Kama. The red was in her cheeks and there was no encouragement for me in her eyes. “I will say, Mr. Sidney, that I have apologized to Miss Kingsley for meddling in matters between you two. I thought I understood and I have tried to help. I deserve exactly what I have received! I assure you both that I will keep out of the way after this.” She started for the door, but I was standing where I could block her. I supplemented my interference by an appeal to the lady of the mansion.
“Will you ask Miss Holstrom to remain for a moment?” I entreated. And Miss Holstrom did remain, biting her lower lip with impatience.
“I haven’t had much time for thinking on what to say,” I confessed. “I don’t know how to talk to ladies very well, anyway.”
My face was flaming—I could hardly control my voice—I felt sure that I was committing a dreadful sin in point of etiquette and all that—but once more I was playing a big game in my life—bigger, even, for the sake of my happiness than when I offered to go down after the remainder of the treasure of the Golden Gate. I was operating again on human nature—and that nature was in the complex little personality of Kama Holstrom who pressed impatiently at my elbow, frowning at me. I knew with all my heart and soul that unless she stood in the presence of Celene Kingsley and myself—as she then stood—and heard the truth about my boyhood folly, my cause was lost; because the pride of a girl makes the way of a man with a maid a mighty doubtful proposition.
“May I hope that you have found out that I am not the scoundrel you believed me to be?”
“I know the truth now. My father is wiser! I am trying to find words—”