“I beg your pardon,” returned Elaine, “but——”
“Sometimes,” interrupted the poet, in a low tone, “when I have felt especially near to Uncle Ebeneezer’s spirit, I have barely glanced in secret places where I have felt he might expect me to look for it, but, so far, I have been wholly unsuccessful, though I know that I plainly read his thought.”
“Some word—some clue—did he give you none?”
“None whatever, except that once or twice he said that he would see that I was suitably provided for. He intimated that he intended me to have a sum apportioned to my deserts.”
“Which would be a generous one; but now—Oh, Mr. Perkins, how can I help you?”
“You have never suspected, have you,” asked Mr. Perkins, colouring to his temples, “that the room you now occupy might once have been my own? Have no poet’s dreams, lingering in the untenanted spaces, claimed your beauteous spirit in sleep?”
“Oh, Mr. Perkins, have I your room? I will so gladly give it up—I——”
The poet raised his hand. “No. The place where you have walked is holy ground. Not for the world would I dispossess you, but——”
A meaning look did the rest. “I see,” said Elaine, quickly guessing his thought, “you want to hunt in my room. Oh, Mr. Perkins, I have thoughtlessly pained you again. Can you ever forgive me?”
“My thoughts,” breathed Mr. Perkins, “are perhaps too finely phrased for modern speech. I would not trespass upon the place you have made your own, but——”