She heard the door open and she heard the Reverend Castor’s deep, warm voice saying, “Why, Naomi, what’s the matter?”
She answered him, without looking up. “It’s the drawer,” she said. “It’s stuck again ... and I’m ... I’m so tired.”
He went over to the cabinet and this time he was forced to struggle with it.
“It’s really too heavy for you, my dear girl ... I’ll fix it myself in the morning.” He replaced the music and when he attempted to close the drawer again it stuck fast. “Now it won’t close at all. But I can fix it. I’m handy about such things.”
His hands were trembling, and he looked white and tired. He talked with the air of a man desperately hiding pits of silence. When he turned, Naomi still sat on the floor, her body bent forward. Her worn, rain-soaked hat had fallen forward a little, and she was sobbing. He sat down in the great stuffed leather chair. It was very low, so that he was almost on a level with her.
“My poor child,” he asked, “what is it? Is it something I can help?”
“I don’t know. I wanted to talk to some one. I can’t go on. I can’t ... I can’t.”
He laid his big hand on her shoulder with a gentleness that seemed scarcely real, and, at the touch, she looked up at him, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief that had been soaked with tears hours earlier. As she looked at him, some old instinct, born of long experience with unhappy women, took possession of him. He said, “Why, you’ve got a new dress on, Naomi. It’s very pretty. Did you make it yourself?”
For a second a look almost of happiness came into her face. “Why, yes,” she said. “Mabelle helped me ... but I made most of it myself.”
His other hand touched her shoulder. “Here,” he said, “lean back against my knee and tell me everything that’s making you unhappy....” When she hesitated, he said, “Try to think of me as your father, my child. I’m old enough to be your father ... and I don’t want to see you unhappy.”