Bess was down beside him before the words were half passed his lips. She stood at her full height before the painter, the light from one of the windows falling on her face. Wilson understood of a sudden how this tall, proud-faced forest child had set Jeffray’s manhood in a blaze.
Jeffray, who had been speaking to Gladden, came back and laid his hand on Wilson’s shoulder.
“This is Mrs. Elizabeth Grimshaw, Dick,” he said, with the pride of a lover; “you have been paying your respects to her.”
“I have, sir, I have,” quoth the painter with a bow.
Bess, who had taken a liking to this ugly but honest-eyed man, smiled at him, and held out a hand.
“I thank you for having helped us,” she said.
“Don’t thank me, madam,” retorted the painter, bluntly. “Mr. Richard here is quite capable of fighting his own battles.”
They laughed—the three of them, Bess and Jeffray looking into each other’s eyes. Wilson still studying with inevitable admiration the face and figure of the woman who had changed a dreamer into a man of fire and action. Peter Gladden was waiting at the hall-door, smirking, and rubbing his smooth chin with his fingers. Jeffray, giving his hand to Bess, led her with an Old-World courtliness up the steps and into the house. The butler stood aside, bowing and fixing his eyes deferentially upon his master’s shoes. He cast a peering, birdlike glance at Bess after she had passed, grinned as he caught Mr. Wilson’s eye, and smothered the smirk instantly as the painter’s stare snubbed him. Jeffray led Bess to the dining-room where supper had been spread hastily upon the table. He drew back a chair for her, dismissed Gladden, who came in with a mincing shuffle, and prepared to wait on Bess in person.
“You must eat,” he said, bending slightly over her chair.
She lay back and looked at him, her eyes shining through her half-closed lashes.