With one of her lithe movements she rose to her feet, and, flinging out her arms in a wide gesture, began to walk about the room, stopping here and there to turn on the light and draw the flaring chintz curtains. I rose, too, so as to aid her. Suddenly as we met, by the window, she laid both her hands on my shoulders and looked into my face earnestly and imploringly, and her lips quivered. I wondered apprehensively what she was going to do next.
“For God's sake, be my friend and help me!”
The cry, in her rich, low notes, seemed to come from the depths of the woman's nature. It caused some absurd and unnecessary chord within me to vibrate.
For the first time I realised that her strong, handsome face could look nobly and pathetically beautiful. Her eyes swam in an adorable moisture and grew very human and appealing. In a second all my self-denying ordinances were forgotten. The witch had me in her power again.
“My dear Madame Brandt,” said I, “how can I do it?”
“Don't take Dale from me. I've lived alone, alone, alone all these years, and I couldn't bear it.”
“Do you care for him so very much?”
She withdrew her hands and moved slightly. “Who else in the wide world have I to care for?”
This was very pathetic, but I had the sense to remark that compromising the boy's future was not the best way of showing her devotion.
“Oh, how could I do that?” she asked. “I can't marry him. And if I do what I've never done before for any man—become his mistress—who need know? I could stay in the background.”