“May I know what it was?” Pryde asked, going to the window, looking at her searchingly with his keen, speculative eyes.
“You, Stephen? No.” She could scarcely have spoken more coldly. And again she crossed the room, and stood looking down into the fire this time, her face once more out of the range of his eyes.
Pryde bit his lip, but he made no further bid for her confidence. He knew it would be useless—and worse. Neither spoke again for some time. Only the tick-tick of the grandfather’s clock, rewound and set now, touched the absolute silence. At last he said, “Helen.”
“Yes.” She turned and faced him, but both her voice and her face were cold and discouraging. He was risking too much, he was rasping his cousin; and he knew it. But for the life of him he could not desist. Such moments come to men sometimes, and against the impulse the firmest will is helpless.
“Do you remember losing a little blue shoe, years ago?” he began.
“I? No.”
“You did—the day we first came here. I found it. And I kept it. I have it still. I’ve always had it. I had it at Oxford.”
Helen sat down wearily, looking bored.
“I loved that little blue shoe, even the day I found and kept it—because it was yours. I have treasured it all these years—because it was yours. I shall keep it always.”
The girl shrugged her shoulders a little unkindly. “Well,” she said indifferently, “I don’t suppose it would fit me now.”