"I'm glad it is McKinstry she loves, and not I," he said.
He turned, and forgot her, watching Grey coming nearer to him. The garden sloped down to the borders of the creek, and she stood on its edge now, looking at the uneasy crusting of the black water and the pearly glint of moonlight. Thinking of Lizzy, and the strong love that held her; feeling a little lonely, maybe, and quiet, she did not know why; trying to wrench her thoughts back to the house, and the clothes, and the spareribs. Why! he could read her thoughts on her face as if it were a baby's! A homely, silly girl they called her. He thanked God nobody had found her out before him. Look at the dewy freshness of her skin! how pure she was! how the world would knock her about, if he did not keep his hold on her! But he would do that; to-night he meant to lay his hand upon her life, and never take it off, absorb it in his own. She moved forward into the clear light: that was right. There was a broken boll of a beech—tree covered with lichen: she should sit on that, presently, her face in open light, he in the shadow, while he told her. "Watching her with hot breath where she stood, then going down to her:—
"Is Grey waiting to bid her friend good-bye?"
She put her hand in his,—her very lips trembling with the sudden heat, her untrained eyes wandering restlessly.
"I thought you would come to me, Doctor Blecker."
"Call me Paul," roughly. "I was coarser born and bred than you. I want to think that matters nothing to you."
She looked up proudly.
"You know it matters nothing. I am not vulgar."
"No, Grey. But—it is curious, but no one ever called me Paul, as boy or man. It is a sign of equality; and I've always had, in the mélée, the underneath taint about me. You are not vulgar enough to care for it. Yours is the highest and purest nature I ever knew. Yet I know it is right for you to call me Paul. Your soul and mine stand on a plane before God."
The childish flush left her face; the timid woman-look was in it now. He bent nearer.