And now that the first ten minutes had passed he felt anew the futility of his errand. His first look into her face made him certain he might better have remained in Chicago. The thing which cut off all approach was that she too had done some work on the surface.
It seemed to him as he sat there in utter silence that he had been brutal, not alone to her heart, but to his own, that he asked too much, not only of her command, but of his. He had come to talk of Ernestine and the future; the things about him drew him overmasteringly to Karl and the past.
She had taken him to her little sitting room up stairs, forced to do so because the fire down stairs had gone out. He understood now why it was she had faltered so in asking him to come up here. Here was Karl's big chair—many things from their library at home. It was where she lived with her past. She wanted no one here.
She would make no attempt at helping him. She sat there in silence, her face white, almost stern. In her aloofness it was as though she were trying to hold herself, from the consciousness of his presence.
He too remained silent. For he was filled with the very things against which he had come to protest.
It was Karl who was very close; it was the thoughts of Karl's life which filled him. His heart had never been so warm for his friend, his appreciation had never been so great as now. Karl, and all that Karl meant, had never been so close, and so dear. And the words he finally said to Ernestine, words of passionate tenderness spoken in utter unconsciousness of how far he had gone from his purpose, were: "I do not believe any of us half appreciated Karl!"
Startled, she gave him a long, strange look. "No, Dr. Parkman,"—very low—"neither do I."
"I have been looking into it since. I wanted to throw Karl's results to the right man. He was head and shoulders above them all."
There was a slow closing of her eyes, but she was not shrinking from him now;—this the kind of hurt she was able to bear.
"If he had been left to work out his life—" but he stopped, brought suddenly to a sense of how far he had lost himself.