John's manner was as gentle as Cecilia's. Stuyvesant followed him. On the broad porch he paused and looked back.
Evangeline was telling Cecilia that he loved her, in dog fashion—wag code.
Cecilia patted him.
"Gosh!" said Stuyvesant, and then he mopped his forehead, making another picture in the dust.
Dusk came before dinner time. It crept down stealthily, like the thief it is of day. Shadows darkened and lengthened. Greens grew black. Cecilia in the half light on a wide porch watched a certain big and unusually gruff man. Something, she could see, was making him like a wistful boy—a boy so heart-set on his want that he fears the risk of refusal.
Cecilia thought of Marjory across the seas. There was a chance to play traitor—a chance to rekindle the little spark she had once fired in Stuyvesant. The idea danced about her soul and burnt its edges.
"Father McGowan-dear," she appealed inside, "please help me! I am trying, but I am so little!" A breeze from the Sound came with a swish and moaned gently in and out among the loving arms of trees.
The lights in the dining room were soft. They shone gently down on a large bowl of pink roses which were in the centre of the table. Their hearts were a deeper colour and they nodded and seemed to talk when the steps of two pompous persons who passed things shook them.
Stuyvesant looked at Cecilia and then quickly away. He did not know what kind of a frock she wore except that it was white. He knew that she looked good, gentle and pure; that her eyes held the depths that hurts bring and the deep loyalty of love. There was a little droop to her lips that made him ache to see. He wondered at it, dared to hope that it had come because of him, and then he put the thought away. Unbelievably sweet it seemed.
And Cecilia?