For the first few moments the night seemed to set a seal upon his lips as he walked beside her, so that his response had the effect of being pondered. "My desire is to please you. But I shall reserve the right of pleasing myself now and then as I did the other day."
"It pleased me, too," Constance said, amiably. "What I feared was that it might become a custom—an unnecessary burden."
Gordon signalled an approaching car. "A burden? Mrs. Stuart, the burden of walking home by moonlight with the wrong woman is one which men generally manage to shift."
Constance laughed. "Perhaps I should have thought of that. But now you will be protected at all events."
From her seat in the electric car she beheld him standing at the street corner until his figure was lost in the shadows of the night. She felt complacent. She had gained her point, and since it was on terms need she feel otherwise than happy at the prospect of having him sometimes as a companion on her journeys home? The more she could see of him rightfully, without encroaching on his time, surely the better for her. The discretion rested with him, not with her; she was simply the fortunate beneficiary.
So it came to pass that once in three or four times Gordon would exercise his privilege; and as another year slipped away and the spring brought milder nights and more inviting sidewalks, the occasions became more frequent, so that before either seemed to be aware of it, the custom of riding was more honored in the breach than the observance, and this without further discussion. They would simply start as though she were to take an electric car, and before reaching the corner he would casually interrupt their discourse to say, "It is a fine night; shall we walk?" to which Constance would reply, "If you like." After a while even this formula was dispensed with, and she was ready to take for granted that they both preferred the exercise. One day he asked permission to accompany her and her children on one of their Sunday afternoon strolls into the country, a proposal which startled her, but which she had no obvious excuse for refusing. On their return home from the excursion Henrietta and little Emil were so enthusiastic over this addition to the party that she felt reluctant on their account to prevent its repetition. So the experience was renewed every now and then, and, since he seemed to enjoy it, she accepted it as one of the pleasures which Providence had thrown in her way.
Intimacy naturally resulted from this increasing association. It was a constant comfort to Constance that Mr. Perry was such a natural person; that he obviously liked her for herself, but did not affect to ignore or gloss over the fact that her life was circumscribed and straitened by her necessities; that, while assuming that she was interested in and able to appreciate the finer aspirations and concerns of existence, he let her perceive that he understood her predicament. Consequently she felt at liberty and encouraged to speak to him from time to time on the subject nearest her heart—the advancement of her children—and to ask advice in relation thereto.
On one of their evenings—a moonlight night, which rivalled in beauty that when he had first accompanied her—she had been consulting him as to the conditions of a free art school recently started in the new Art Museum, having little Emil in mind. After a short silence she suddenly said, "I admire your mother greatly, as you know. But sometimes I am doubtful whether she does not discourage me even more than she gives me hope; her example, I mean. She brought you up. She was almost as friendless as I. I dare say she did not have so many friends. Yet—yet you are you. She managed to give you everything."
"God bless her, yes, brave heart that she is."
"But——"