He wondered long and wistfully what was in her heart while this wild tumult was going on in him. He wondered if it were possible she loved him. It seemed too good to be true. He was afraid to believe it. And yet his whole soul with every power of his being cried out that she did. He could not have been mistaken in the message he read in the liquid depths of her eyes, and the delicate tenderness of her voice. Words may say nothing, but these signs are the language of the universal. Still, others had been equally sure, and been deceived. Might not he too make the fatal mistake? It was possible. And there was the pain.
She had not uttered a single word in all the hours they spent together that might not be interpreted in a conventional meaningless way.
Yet he had given to every one of these words a soul meaning that spoke directly to his inner being and not his ear.
He had never spoken a word of shallow love-making to a woman in his life. To him love was too holy a mystery. It would have been the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost—a sin that would not be forgiven in this world or the world to come. His college mates had called him a crank on this subject. But he shut his lips in a way that always closed the argument, and they let him alone with his Idol.
“I am afraid yet to put it to the test!” he said at last. “I must have time to reveal my best self to her. I must see her again, live close to her day by day, and bring to bear on her every power of body and soul I possess.” Mrs. Durham met him with dancing eyes. “Oh, I’ve heard from you, sir!”
“Kiss me Auntie, and be kind. I’m in the last stages of delirium!”
He took her hands both in his and looked at her long. “How good you’ve been to me, Auntie, in all the past. You never looked so beautiful as to-day. I want to thank you for every word you’ve said to Miss Sallie for me. It may have helped just a little anyway.”
“Well you are in the last stages!” she exclaimed gleefully.
“And you are glad of it?”
“Of course, I am, it will make a man of you.”