“Talk a little first. There will be time for both before he remembers us again,” answered Helwyze, motioning her to a seat beside him, with the half-imperative, half-courteous, look and gesture habitual to him.
“He will not forget: Felix always keeps his promises to me,” said Gladys, with an air of gentle pride, taking her place, not beside, but opposite, Helwyze, on the couch where Elaine had laid not long ago.
This involuntary act of hers gave a tone to the conversation which followed; for Helwyze, being inwardly perturbed, was seized with a desire to hover about dangerous topics: and, seeing her sit there, so near and yet so far, so willing to serve, yet so completely mistress of herself, longed to ruffle that composure, if only to make her share the disquiet of which she was the cause.
“Always?” he said, lifting his brows with an incredulous expression, as he replied to her assertion.
“I seldom ask any promise of him, but when I do, he always keeps it. You doubt that?”
“I do.”
“When you know him as well as I, you will believe it.”
“I flatter myself that I know him better; and, judging from the past, should call him both fickle and, in some things, false, even to you.”
Up sprung the color to Gladys’s cheek, and her eyes shone with sudden fire, but her voice was low and quiet, as she answered quickly,—
“One is apt to look for what one wishes to find: I seek fidelity and truth, and I shall not be disappointed. Felix may wander, but he will come back to me: I have learned how to hold him now.”