His hands—broad fine hands—were outspread to catch her.
Afterward, when recollection of that vivid, scarlet instant returned to him, he was never quite able to explain to himself how it had happened. Perhaps he did not reckon with his various courses in physics—certain laws of falling bodies, accelerated motion, and such uninteresting things. In any event it was as though his hands had not been there; for before he could clutch at the little furry ball of falling femininity it had shot between those groping hands of his and in an infinitesimal space of time had struck the low snow-drift beside the walk, no longer a furry ball but a sprawl of screaming child.
"Oh! Mr. Catherwood!" cried Mrs. Lowe.
There was an instant's silence and then the atmosphere was punctured by the piercing yelps of the little Mary.
Mrs. Lowe snatched her daughter from the drift and, clutching her close, cooed to her, consolingly.
"Did the great horrid man drop mother's darling?" she murmured.
Catherwood, stricken momentarily dumb by the accident, finally found his voice though it was unsteady and very much in his throat.
"Mrs. Lowe," he exclaimed, despairingly, "I'm very sorry; believe me; I guess, I must——"
She shot him one glance of injured motherhood, and without replying turned and strode out of the yard still hugging close to her maternal bosom the wailing Mary.
The shrieks had penetrated to the study of the assistant professor and as she turned in at her own gate he appeared upon the porch.