Adrian started as though he had seen a ghost. Jacomina lifted a blushing face and gave him an instantaneous glance from her bright eyes—made brighter now by a suspicion of tears. Then she bent her face forward upon her hands and began to sob.
Adrian was bewildered. This was something he had never thought the matter-of-fact Jacomina capable of. Something must be very wrong indeed. But he felt no longer awe, and his shyness was swept away in a tide of pity. There was room on the ledge for two; Adrian sat down next to the distressed damsel and endeavoured to comfort her.
“What is it, then, Jacomyntje,—has your Pa been scolding you?”
Jacomina nearly gave herself away by indignantly repudiating the bare notion of her succumbing to anybody’s scolding, but she remembered herself in time. After a partial recovery she was seized by another paroxysm of sobs, in the course of which she pressed one hand across her eyes and allowed the other to droop, limply, to her side. No observer of human nature will be in doubt as to which hand it was she let droop.
Adrian, after a moment’s hesitation, nervously lifted the hand and pressed it slightly. As it was not withdrawn he increased the pressure. The sobbing calmed down somewhat, but the head remained bowed in an apparent abandon of hope.
“What is it, Jacomina; tell me why you are weeping.”
“Ach, Adrian,—I am so unhappy.”
This was getting no farther forward. The sobbing again recurred, and the fingers of the sufferer took a tight grasp of those of the consoler. Then the afflicted form swayed so helplessly that Adrian felt bound to support it with his arm, and in a moment the head of Jacomina reposed quietly upon his breast.
“What is it, ’Meintje; tell me?”
There was no reply. Adrian looked down upon the sorrow-bowed head and felt that the growing lassitude of the girl called for firmer support, which was at once forthcoming. The experience was new and alarming but, taken all round, he liked it. Jacomina was no longer formidable; in a few moments he forgot that he had ever been afraid of her.