“Really, Joseph?” she exclaimed in mock alarm, pronouncing the name perfectly.
“You know. And you’ve been only pretending that English wasn’t perfectly familiar to you.”
She gave a musical, purring little laugh. Any man would deserve great credit for self-restraint in resisting it—and the chin. Thenceforward she spoke in English of the purest accent.
“What’s the confession, Joseph?”
“I’ve known something for a long time, Beela, and I’ve been deceiving you with thinking that I didn’t know; but I did so because you evidently wished me to be deceived. Everything might have gone wrong if I had betrayed my knowledge to you. But it has served its time. You will forgive me for deceiving you,—dear?”
All that went to make her a miracle of precious womanhood was vibrant. There was the same sweet flutter that I had seen before in her velvety throat. Of course she enjoyed her little triumph of knowing that even for a time her deception had prospered, and she was a-thrill with the recollection of it. After that came contrition. A half-smile lingered on her lips, though her eyes were rueful.
“You are good and generous, Joseph, for not giving me a chiding word; and I don’t think there is the least of it in your big heart.”
“Chiding, sweet girl? I understood your feeling for the necessity of the deception. Your wish is my law, and to serve it is less a duty than a privilege.”
There was a slight puzzle in the glow that flooded her heavenly eyes.
“You found it out all by yourself, Joseph?”