Sylvie quivered as though a wound had been touched. “Oh, you mean me,” she said, “I know you mean me. I’m making trouble. I’m eating too much. I’ll go. Pete, has anybody been asking about me at the post-office, trying to find me? They must be hunting for me.” She had stood up and was clasping and unclasping her hands. Hugh and Pete protested in one breath: “Nonsense, Sylvie!”
And Pete went on with: “There hasn’t been anyone asking about you, but—so much the better for us. You’re safe here, and comfortable, aren’t you? And—Hugh, you tell her what it means to us to have her here.”
It was more of a speech than he had made since Sylvie’s arrival, and it was not just the speech, in tone or manner, of a fourteen-year-old boy. There was a new somber note in his voice, too—some of the youthful quality had gone out of it. Sylvie took a step toward him, to thank him, perhaps, perhaps to satisfy, by laying her hand upon him, a sudden bewilderment; but in her blindness she stumbled on the edge of the hearth, and to save her from falling, Pete caught her in his arms. For an instant he held her close, held her fiercely, closer and more fiercely than he knew, and Sylvie felt the strength of him and heard the pounding of his heart. Then Hugh plucked her away with a smothered oath. He put her into a chair, crushed her hand in one of his, and turned upon Bella.
“Go back into the kitchen,” he ordered brutally; “trapping’s not your business. You mind your cooking.”
“Be careful, Hugh!” Bella’s whisper whistled like a falling lash, “I’ll not stand that tone from you. Be careful!”
“Oh,” pleaded Sylvie, “why do you all quarrel so? Off here by yourselves with nobody else to care, I’d think you would just love each other. I love you all—yes, I do, even you, Bella, though I know you hate me. Bella, why do you hate me? Why does it make you so angry to have me here? Does it make your work so much harder? I’ll soon be better; I’m learning to feel my way about. I’ll be able to help you. I should think you’d be glad to have a girl in the house—another woman. I’m sorry to be a nuisance, really I am. I’d go if I could.”
The lonely, deep silence, always waiting to fall upon them, shut down with suddenness at the end of her sweet, tearful quaver of appeal. For minutes no one spoke. Then Pete followed Bella out of the room. She had not answered Sylvie’s beseeching questions, but had only stood with lowered head, her face working, her hands twisting her dress. She had run out just as her face cramped as though for tears.
When the other two had gone, Hugh captured both of Sylvie’s hands in his. “You don’t mean that, do you?” he asked brokenly. “You don’t mean you’d go away if you could, Sylvie!”
At Hugh’s voice she started and the color rushed into her cheeks. “If I make you quarrel, if I’m a nuisance, if Pete and Bella hate me so!”
“But I”—he said—“I love you.” He drew her head—she was sitting in her chair again—against his side. “No, don’t smile at me like that; I don’t mean the sort of love you think. I love you terribly. Can’t you feel how I love you? Listen, close against my heart. Don’t be frightened. There, now you know how I love you!”