There was a hard quality about her gratitude.
"I am glad, Bobby. The man makes me shudder, and all morning they seemed more interested in you than in him. They've rummaged every room—even mine."
She laughed feverishly.
"That's why I've been so upset. They seemed—" She broke off. She picked at her handkerchief. After a moment she looked him frankly in the eyes and continued: "They seemed almost as doubtful of me as of you."
He recalled Paredes's suspicion of the girl.
"It's nonsense, Katherine. And I'm to blame for that, too."
She put her finger to her lips. Her smile was wistful.
"Hush! You mustn't blame yourself. You mustn't think of that."
Again her solicitude, their isolation in a darkened place, tempted him, aroused impulses nearly irresistible. Her slender figure, the pretty face, grown familiar and more desirable through all these years, swept him to a harsher revolt than he had conquered in the library. In the face of Graham, in spite of his own intolerable position he knew he couldn't fight that truth eternally. She must have noticed his struggle without grasping its cause, for she touched his hand, and the wistfulness of her expression increased.
"I wish you wouldn't think of me, Bobby. It's you we must all think of."