“Or if not ashamed of me that you couldn’t help knowing that I was—what I am—all right here in the hills but that outside—I wouldn’t do.”
“If you were ever afraid of that, it was only because you were undervaluing yourself. You surely haven’t any ghost of such a fear left now.”
For a little she stood silent again torn between the loyalty that hesitated to question him and the pride that was hurt.
Finally she said simply: “It’s a bigger fear now. Unless I’m unpresentable, why do you—never take me anywhere with you?”
John Spurrier laughed, vastly relieved that the mountain of her anxiety had resolved itself, as he thought, into a mole-hill. He could laugh because he had no suspicion of the chronic soreness of her heart and his answer was lightly made.
“These trips have all been in connection with the sort of business, Glory, that would have meant keeping me away from you whether you had gone to town or not. When we travel together—and I want that we shall travel a great deal—I must be free to devote myself to you. I want to show the world to you and I want to show you to the world.”
That declaration he fancied ought to resolve her fears of his being ashamed of her.
“If you were afraid I’d seem out of place,” she assured him, “I might be right sorry—and yet I think I’d understand. I’m not a fool and I know I’d make mistakes, but I was raised a lawyer’s daughter and I’ve got a pretty good business head—yet you’ve never told me anything of what this business is that calls you away. You always treat me as if there were no use in even trying to make me understand it.”
The man no longer laughed. He could not explain that it was rather because she might understand too well than not well enough. Even to her, until he was ready to prove his intent by his actual deeds, it seemed impossible to give that story without the seeming of the plunderer of her people.