When Rufus turned his head he meant to say firmly but kindly that it would be better if they did not meet again. And then he would soothe the hurt—if hurt there should be—by telling her how grateful he was for her visit and how much he appreciated her kindness.
He was quite sure she would understand. She was not a child and her eyes were more than ordinarily sharp. If she chose to take offence, of course, he would be sorry; but better she should be offended than that he should break his heart.
He was bristling all over with courage when their eyes met, and then all his strength departed. Madeline had no thought of conquest. She only wanted to be kind. She felt infinitely pitiful toward this strong man who had been brought low through her, and her pity shone in her eyes and vibrated in every tone of her voice.
It was her artlessness, her sweet ingenuousness that broke Rufus down. In addition to which she was so exquisitely beautiful, while the unfamiliar lilt and intonation of her voice were like music in his ears.
"It will be just heaven if you will come and read to me sometimes," he heard himself saying, and then he wondered whether he was awake or dreaming.
"Then I will come to-morrow. It will be perfectly lovely to do some little bit of good in the world."
The room seemed to grow dark when she took her departure, as though a cloud drifted across the face of the sun. For a long time he lay quite still, looking at the door, behind which she had disappeared. His heart was in a strange tumult, but whether pleasure or pain predominated he did not know. What he did know was that the intoxication of her presence was the sweetest thing he had ever known, but below the sweet and struggling to get to the top, was a sense of something exceedingly bitter.
He felt like a drunkard steadily gravitating toward the tap-room. His moral sense, his better judgment, urged him to turn aside or turn back; his appetite, his desire for excitement or forgetfulness lured him with irresistible force.
"I know I am a fool," he said to himself, "and I shall have to pay dearly enough for my folly later on, but I can't help it."