Jeremiah looked away from the roses, and absently stuck the corner of his napkin in his collar. Then he looked about to see if any one had noticed, and hastily took it out.
Cecilia saw and her heart leaped with love. It seemed to her that the Saints had made Jeremiah do that then. Do it to show the little earth maiden her work in life. The taking from her father the shame which a son would have him feel, and giving him a substitute for the love that left him too soon,—too hungering.
They got up at last. Cecilia took a bobbing rose from the centrepiece. She began to break the thorns from it, but Stuyvesant's hands took it from her. He removed them methodically, and surely,—as he would. When he gave it back to her, there was nothing left to hurt.
"Thank you," she said.
"I wish I could take them out of the world for you," he answered gruffly. She shook as she crossed the room to where her father and John waited at the door. Her temptation was past. Her heart was strong, but she prayed that he would not say such things so much as if he meant them. It made it too hard.
"I am so weak," she thought, "so weak!"
Stuyvesant walked laggingly across the soft grass. John had said that he would find her by a white wall with a Greek relief, that that was her favourite spot. Stuyvesant knew that he dreamed of that spot because of her, but his connection with it influencing her, he never thought of. His spirit, always humble with her, knelt.
He thought of John's understanding, and whispering, "Good luck, Stuyv, dear!" and of his gasping, "John,—you'd be willing?" John had whacked him on the back and had answered convincingly. Then he'd gone unsteadily down the steps, and had lagged across the close-clipped grass. He wanted as he had never wanted anything to see her, but he was shaken and unsure ... sick from longing and fear.
Ahead of him in the half light he saw the stretch of wall standing out among the shadows.
He stopped, heart pounding, at the corner of the hedge-sheltered path. The little Irish maiden who was his key to heaven sat on the wall. Behind her the Sound was black. The soft stillness enveloped everything. The half night throbbed. Cecilia looked up, and saw the tall shadow in the shadows.