"Why, Lawrence, didn't you like the lunch I fixed for you?"
"It was bully, Claire," he answered quickly, "but I wasn't very hungry to-day—I don't know why."
The emotional coloring in his voice set her whole being atremble. She had come in, radiant with the day's pleasure, and he had met her with his need. He had been too blue even to eat. She was suddenly seized with pity for him, as she thought of his long day alone. But more than that, over and over in her heart she kept saying, with a joy she could not conceal from herself, "He loves me! He loves me!"
Philip came in and bent over them both to look at the wooden child.
"Caramba! it is a marvelous thing!" he exclaimed. The unconscious use of the Spanish word showed the genuineness of his admiration.
Claire laughed joyously. She was glad that Philip knew the power of this blind man who loved her, and a vague feeling came over her that she was now somehow safe from Philip. Instantly she wondered at her feeling the need of safety from him. Glancing back over Lawrence's head, she met Ortez's eyes and read in their look a tenderness that he did not know was there. Her heart leaped unsteadily, and her lashes dropped. She was saying to herself, "How wonderful he is!"
Then she turned and almost ran behind the curtain that walled her room. On the edge of her bed she sat, her face in her hands, hot tears burning her eyes, while over and over the blood rushed into her cheeks and out again.
"Claire! Claire! What sort of a woman are you?" she moaned.
Her heart beat irregularly under the surge of emotion that shook her. She was glad, glad that Lawrence loved her. She had looked into the eyes of Philip Ortez, and her own had dropped, while her mind had leaped into admiration of him, warm, yielding admiration. What was it that had swept her on the discovery of one man's love to a deep, vibrant gladness—that another man's eyes had been filled with tenderness for her? Was she so changed from the Claire of old? Was she utterly degraded? Did she want both men to love her? Did she love either of them? What of her husband? She sank down on the bed and wept silently.
They were talking out there in the cabin. She heard Lawrence say laughingly: "One gets accustomed to hearing your voices around, and to hearing Claire do things, so that a day alone seems endless."