“No, you must not do that!” she cried despairingly, and then the tears came suddenly—the tears which had stubbornly refused to flow.
“There,” he said, instantly tender again, “you’ll feel better soon. I won’t be impatient with you.”
But Sylvia’s tears were only incidental to some lesser fear or grief. They did not spring from the wrong she had suffered, or from the depths of her nature, which had been dwarfed and darkened. She listlessly pulled a chair into a better position and sat down where she need not look at Harboro. “Give me a little time,” she said. “You know women have moods, don’t you?” She tried to speak lightly. “If there is anything I can tell you, I will—if you’ll give me time.”
She had no intention of telling Harboro what had happened. The very thought of such a course was monstrous. Nothing could be undone. She could only make conditions just a little worse by talking. She realized heavily that the thing which had happened was not a complete episode in itself; it was only one chapter in a long story which had its beginnings in the first days in Eagle Pass, and even further away. Back in the San Antonio days. She could not give Harboro an intelligent statement of one chapter without detailing a long, complicated synopsis of the chapters that went before.
To be sure, she did not yet know the man she was dealing with—Harboro. She was entirely misled by the passive manner in which he permitted her to withdraw from him.
“Yes, you shall have time,” he said. “I only want you to know that I am here to help you in any way I can.”
She remained silent so long that he became impatient again. “Did you find your father very ill?” he hazarded.
“My father? Oh! No ... I can hardly say. He seemed changed. Or perhaps I only imagined that. Perhaps he really is very ill.”
Another long silence ensued. Harboro was searching in a thousand dark places for the cause of her abnormal condition. There were no guide-posts. He did not know Sylvia’s father. He knew nothing about the life she had led with him. He might be a cruel monster who had abused her—or he might be an unfortunate, unhappy creature, the very sight of whom would wound the heart of a sensitive woman.
He leaned forward and took her arm and drew her hand into his. “I’m waiting, Sylvia,” he said.