“And you?”
“I am curious,” she said, looking at me intently.
I raised my hand to my throat significantly and the look in my eyes must have frightened her, for she attempted no more persiflage but moved away, rather still and serious for the rest of the evening. Perhaps, at the bottom of her feline soul, there is a touch of genuine fear and—a desire to live.
* * * * *
I thought the evening would never end. Anne reproached me for my gloominess and went off early, hurt, I know, at my seeming indifference. I do not love her, I am sure of that; and yet I cannot bear to see a certain wounded look in her eyes!
VIII
To-day, a strange conversation with Molly,—strange, for all at once I seemed to know the human being with whom I had lived all these years. Until now, I had thought of her only as a lovely child, something soft and gentle, a laugh that was good to hear, a smiling face, content, as you enjoy a graceful animal, a bit of sunshine and the fragrance of the violet beds. Now, to my astonishment, I perceive a woman; a directness of vision; a delicate perception of standards and a firmness of purpose.
She came in late from a skating party over at the Brinsmades’, where I had purposely not gone, and, at the first glance of her telltale countenance, I knew that something had happened. In the hall she caught my hand.
“Come upstairs with me, Davy, just a minute.”
“Up it is, young lady.”