Christina opened her eyes full on him; glancing from the portières to the softly curtained windows between which they two were completely alone, "Is it so terrible here?" she inquired.
Herrick sat down.
She waited for him to speak and he had something on his conscience. He told her, then and there, about the voice in his dream which had said to him, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" The little nerves in her skin trembled and he, too, felt a superstitious thrill. "But I must suppose, now, that I didn't dream it at all. Some one in that room must have called it out—perhaps when they saw her card on the piano. I was in a pretty fidgety state,—to speak grandly, an electric state,—and, being just on the sensitive borderline between sleeping and waking, I suppose I simply happened to catch it—like a wireless at sea."
"Ask Nancy Cornish!" Christina repeated. "Ask Nancy—ah, if we could! What kind of voice was it? Should you recognize it, do you think, if you heard it again?"
"How could I? I'm scarcely even sure that I heard a voice."
"Only that you heard a shot and had to help! And didn't it occur to you that it might have been the woman who fired? I see—you don't think of women in that way. The reason I didn't ask you, yesterday, to call here," Christina volunteered, "was that I didn't want you to come."
She made this rude announcement with an effect of such good faith that Herrick laughed, "Ah, well, it's too late for that! I'm here!"
"Exactly! But not through me. My friends come to no good, Mr. Herrick—they are parted from me by a trouble as wide as the world, or else—" She put one hand over her eyes. "What is it?—a curse, a darkness?—I don't know! It's like a trap! It's as if vengeance baited a circle with me and, whenever a kindness advanced toward me, the trap fell. Even my poor Herr Hermy, who lost his picture-shop with the plush curtains, may lose his superintendency because I sent Mr. Ingham to his house. You would do better to take my word; to believe me when I tell you that somehow I bring danger. What have I done? What does it mean? I can't tell you. It's always been so. I'm like some bird that brings the storm on its wings, it doesn't know why. Life's hard for me, that's all." She pushed up her hair with the backs of her hands,—the quaint little gesture that he loved. "But what use is there in saying all this to frighten you. Something tells me you will never be afraid. Well, then, if you come here against my will, is that my fault? You do wish to befriend me? Isn't that true?"
"It's the biggest truth in my life," Herrick replied.
"You see. I, who am so unlucky, what am I to do? If ever a poor girl needed a friend, I am that girl. But I don't dare let you touch my need. I don't know what it may do to you."