Henry obeyed. He stood meekly on the oil-cloth while Sylvia hurried through the sitting-room to her bedroom.
“Mr. Whitman has got home from Mr. Meeks's, and he's dripping wet,” she said to Horace and Rose. “I am going to get him some dry things and hang the wet ones by the kitchen stove.”
When she re-entered the kitchen with her arms full, Henry cast a scared glance at her. She met it imperturbably.
“Hurry and get off those wet things or you'll catch your death of cold,” said she.
Henry obeyed. Sylvia fastened his necktie for him when he was ready for it. He wondered if she smelled the leather in his drenched clothing. His own nostrils were full of it. But Sylvia made no sign. She never afterwards made any sign. She never intimated to Henry in any fashion that she knew of his return to the shop. She was, if anything, kinder and gentler with him than she had been before, but whenever he attempted, being led thereto by a guilty conscience, to undeceive her, Sylvia lightly but decidedly waved the revelation aside. She would not have it.
That day, when she and Henry entered the sitting-room, she said, so calmly that he had not the courage to contradict her: “Here is your uncle Henry home from Mr. Meeks's, and he was as wet as a drowned rat. I suppose Mr. Meeks didn't have any umbrella to lend. Old bachelors never do have anything.”
Henry sat down quietly in his allotted chair. He said nothing. It was only when the storm had abated, when there was a clear streak of gold low in the west, and all the wet leaves in the yard gave out green and silver lights, when Sylvia had gone out in the kitchen to get supper and Rose had followed her, that the two men looked at each other.
“Does she know?” whispered Horace.
“If she does know, and has taken a notion never to let anybody know she knows, she never will,” replied Henry.
“You mean that she will never mention it even to you?”