"And put yourself doubly in the wrong and make it all the harder for everybody," Bryce told her.
There was a dogged note in the girl's voice as she replied. "I know I was wrong, but I just can't do what you want. I can't say more than that."
"I'm sorry you look at things that way," Bryce said. "I had hoped...." I did not catch the nature of his hope, for his voice dropped an octave or so and his sentence ended in whispers.
"Jimmy Carstairs," I said to myself, "you've been eavesdropping and you know it. You mustn't be caught doing those kind of things. Get out of the way as fast as you can," and at that I twisted round on my heel and went back down the hall. I hadn't any desire to be caught listening to conversations that were obviously not intended for me and that anyway weren't of the least interest. So you can be sure that when I did return up the hall I walked fairly heavily and coughed discreetly as soon as I was within hearing distance of Bryce's room.
The key turned in the lock of a sudden and the door was flung wide open. The girl stood in her own light so that the shadows masked her face, but the sun fell full on mine and my features must have been clearly visible to her.
"You!" she said, with a little catch in her voice.
"Shut the door, please," I said, in the most matter-of-fact tones I could muster. "Shut the door and come out here."
I knew her now. God! Could I ever forget her? In a flash my mind flew back through four years—or was it five?—to that evening when she had caused my little world to rock and tremble, and then to fall in pieces at my feet. I had loved her then—I thought I loved her more than anything or anyone in this world—but a dying father's wish had come between us. The poor old Dad had made a life study of the Islands—how monumental a study it was let his three volumes of Solomon Island Ethnology bear witness—yet he died before he had quite completed his notes. Though he had said nothing to me I knew the wish that lay nearest his heart, and I made his dying hour almost the happiest of his life by promising to carry on his work.
I remember the night I came out to tell her. The sky was streaked with dead gold and cerise and warm-tinted clouds trailed across the heavens like the ends of a scarf streaming from the neck of a hurrying woman. All the world was gay that evening and I whistled as I went. She was waiting at the gate as always she had waited for me. She greeted me with a smile and some bright little remark that I forgot practically the instant it was uttered.
"I want to talk to you," I said; "I want to talk seriously."