"Oh, Celie!" said John. He reached for her hand and clung to it. "Oh, Celie!" he echoed.
Until dawn Stuyvesant relived the night. The ride home had made the deepest impression. A girl with a painted soul and face had chattered loudly, and with a cheap sentiment reeking in her talk. She had spoken often of "Jacky darling."
While Jacky darling, from shame and pain, had groaned in deep, shaky groans, his head had lain on his sister's shoulder. On the other side Stuyvesant had sat. The doctor had disposed of the case as typical, and was thinking of an article which he'd just read in the Medical Journal.
"Dearie," Fanchette LeMain had said, "your fur's open." She had reached toward Cecilia's throat, but Stuyvesant reached first. He fastened the clasp with shaking hands, and the back of one hand touched her chin. Then he had sunk back to dream his impossible dreams, and wonder why she should have cared. He knew he was a duffer! But he was almost sure that she once had cared,—for him.
CHAPTER XVIII
FORGIVENESS
"Celie," said John, "honestly he was devilish to me, and I deserved it!" John was lying on a lounge, covered and looking wan. The library fire burned cheerfully, and the portrait of an Irish mother smiled down on Cecilia and John.
Stuyvesant Twombly had just left. He had uttered some scathing truths.
"He said I was a 'callow pup,'" said John. "He said I shouldn't have called you to that place if I'd been half dead. Cecilia dear, he was right. Celie, forgive me!"
"Dearest!" said Cecilia. She sank to her knees by the lounge, and pressed John's face to hers. He felt her tears.