The minister hearing the light glide of her little feet now outside the doors, hastened to slide back the shoji.
She stood upon the threshold, her eyes widened, her cheeks glowing with the tremulous excitement that always assailed her upon the occasion of these visits. He held out his large hand in silence, and she, the color fluttering wildly now over her face, slowly and timidly lifted her little one from the folds of her sleeve and put it into his. He drew her towards his desk. Still holding her hand, he seated himself and looked up at her, without speaking, but smiling very tenderly. Her eyes turned from his and her lips trembled. She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it firmly and then suddenly enclosed it completely with his other hand. Fright assailed the girl. She slipped to the floor, her head dropping on a level with his knees. Then Richard Verley bent and spoke to her in his strangely tender voice, which somehow always seemed to penetrate and still her beating little heart.
“Azalea!” He spoke her name so softly. “Lift your face, my little girl,” he said. “I want to see it, while I tell you something.”
She obeyed him like a child, but the eyes that met his were mutely appealing.
“What do you think I am going to say to you to-day?” he asked, smiling a trifle.
“About those honorable commandments?”
He shook his head.
“No—you already have learned them well, have you not?”
“Yes. You like hear me say them, mebbe?”
“Not to-day. I wish to speak to you about another matter.”