For a moment she stood thus. Then she suddenly lifted her head, her eyes staring, her whole attitude alert, intent. There was a sound outside. She heard the clank of the latch. And now an awkward shuffling gait just outside her door. She moved toward the parlor and stood listening in the doorway.
Suddenly a light broke in upon her. That awkward footstep! She knew it! Her relief was heartbreaking. It was Elia. With a rush she was at the door, and the next moment she dragged the boy in, and was crooning over him like some mother over a long-lost child.
But the boy pushed her away roughly. His calm face and gentle eyes now shone with excitement, one of those excitements she so dreaded in him.
“Quit, sis,” he cried sharply. “I ain’t no use fer sech slobberin’. I ain’t a kid. Say–––”
He broke off, eyeing her with his head bent sideways in the extraordinary attitude which a cruel nature had inflicted upon him.
“Yes.”
Eve’s eyes were full of a yearning tenderness. His rebuff meant nothing to her devotion. She believed it to be only his way. Part of the cruel disease for which he must be pitied and not blamed.
But his broken sentence remained uncompleted. His eyes were fixed upon her face bland yet sparkling with the thought behind them.
“Peter sent word to me to-day that you––you were lost,” Eve said.