Herrick stayed for some time to counsel and console, but Christina did not return and as Mrs. Hope did not ask him to dinner he was at length obliged to go. For all his amusement he felt a little snubbed and blue and lonely; his eyes hungered for Christina in her finery; he saw her at once as the darling and the executioner of society and he longed to reassure himself with the favor of the spoiled beauty; how was he to wait till to-morrow for the summons of his proud princess? As he opened his door he saw that the fire had been kept up; some one kneeling before it turned at his entrance and faced him. It was Christina.
The shock of her presence was cruelly sweet. The firelight played over her soft light gown; she had taken off her gloves and the ruddiness gleamed on her arms and her long throat and on the sheen of her hair. As she rose slowly to her feet that something at once ineffably luxurious and ineffably spiritual which hung about her like the emanation of a perfume stirred uneasily in him and his senses ached. Never had her fairness hurt him like that; his passion rose into his throat and held him dumb.
"The man looked at me, hard," she told him, "and let me in. I came here to rest. And because I didn't want to be scolded. Don't scold me. Perhaps I've thrown away a world this afternoon. But no; it will roll back to be picked up again. Listen, and tell me that I was right."
Without stirring, "I can never tell you but the one thing," he said. "I love you!"
It was no sooner said than he loathed himself for speaking. He had not dreamed that he should say such a thing. It was not yet a month since her engagement to Ingham had been broken; she was a young girl; she was here alone with him in his rooms, to which she had paid him the perfect honor of coming—she, who had accepted him so simply, so nobly, as a gentleman. Hot shame and black despair seized upon him.
The girl stood quiet as if controlling herself. Then, so gently that she was almost inaudible, she said, "I must go!"
He could not answer her; he was aware of the ripple and murmur of her dress as she fetched her wraps; she put on her hat and the lace of her sleeves foamed back from her arms in the ruddy light; he felt how soon she would be engulfed by that world which was already rolling back to be picked up. He stepped forward to help her with her thin chiffon coat and she suffered this, gently, passively; as it slipped over her shoulders he felt her turn; he felt her arms come around his neck, clinging to him, and the sweetness of her body on his breast. In that firelit room her lips were cold, as they stumbled on his throat with the low cry, "Oh, you love me!—You love me!" she repeated. "And you're a man! Save me!"