Margaret Murchie let me in. Had I been a wolf she could not have glared at me more; it was evident that her shrewd old eyes, whatever hidden knowledge lay behind them, regarded me as a brigand, as a menace, as some one who had come to take a precious treasure of art from the drawing-room or the household goddess from the front hall. And as I sat in the study once more, on the comfortable easy-chair of the Judge, with the empty feeling in my stomach telling me that my nerves were on edge, as they used to be when I rowed on our crew and sat listening for the gun, I was sure that after announcing me she lingered beyond the curtains, covertly watching me.
Julianna did not keep me waiting long, and as she came through the door into the light, I could not help but notice the poise and grace which comes from inherited refinement and health, and is only imitated badly by self-consciousness and the pose of the actress.
“I’m so sorry you did not come a moment earlier,” she said. “Father would have been in. Now, you and I—”
She seated herself in her place on the old-fashioned mahogany sofa.
“Do you mind?” I asked.
“No, I’m glad!” she said, and wriggled like a pleased child, yet so slightly that no one could have accused her of it.
“Do you like me?” said I, after a moment.
Her eyes opened very wide and looked into mine seriously—half amused, half frightened. At last she nodded in a matter-of-fact way; it was only because I could see her hands pressed against the arm of the couch until they were white and little blue veins had begun to show that I knew she was capable of the stoicism of an Indian, and that her nod was not matter-of-fact, after all.
As I have told you, I am not of an habitually romantic temperament. I was well aware of my unfitness to deal with a girl who, herself, had never known the processes of lovers, but the belief that she was trying to restrain her true feelings toward me ran through my brain like an intoxicating liquor. I would have taken the breadth of her shoulders in the crook of my arm, and pressed my face into the rich mass of her hair, and kissed her upon her white forehead, had I not suddenly recalled that never had I even phrased to her a sentence explaining my feeling toward her.
“Of course I do,” she said at that moment. I remember how cool the words sounded.