Truly terror had fled. It shamed her to find herself thanking God that her fate was to lie in the keeping of this young man. Yet it was natural, too, for the child had nigh died of horror, though the courage of the Castles had held her head high in the presence of the inevitable. And now suddenly into her gray and hopeless future, peopled by the phantoms of an old man, stepped a living, smiling young fellow, with gentle manners and honest speech, and a quick courtesy which there was no mistaking.
She had no mother—nobody to talk to—so she had long ago made a confidante of her own reflection in the looking-glass. And to the mirror she now went, meeting the reflected eyes shyly, yet smiling with friendly sympathy:
“Silly! to frighten yourself! It is all over now. He’s young and tall and sunburned. I don’t think he knows a great deal—but don’t be frightened, he is not a bit dreadful, … only … it is a pity, … but I suppose he was in love with me, … and, after all, it doesn’t matter, … only I am … sorry … for him.… If he had only cared for a girl who could love him!… I don’t suppose I could, … ever!… But I will be very kind to him, … to make up.”
III
She saw him every day; she dined at the club table now.
Miss Garcide’s hay-fever increased with the ripening summer, and she lay in her room with all the windows closed, sneezing and reading Anthony Trollope.
When Miss Castle told her that Mr. Crawford was a guest at the club, Miss Garcide wept over her for an hour.
“I feel like weeping, too,” said Miss Castle, tremulously—“but not over myself.”
“Dot over hib?” inquired Miss Garcide.
“Yes, over him. He ought to marry a girl who could fall in love with him.”