Chapter VII: Part III (3)

With a new decisiveness of manner Saint led her to the sofa and sat beside her. He took her hand and held it between both of his, but his manner was abstracted, and his eyes gave her the odd impression of being focussed, not on her face, but on some remote point behind her. He talked rapidly, his enthusiasm vaulting minor details, hurdling obstacles, leaping at, and beyond, conclusions, so that she had very little idea what it was all about. Something very like egotism began to creep into his recital. The girl looked at him in dismayed wonder. She felt as though the sequence of their meeting--understanding--love had commenced to reel backward, and that presently she would find herself talking to a stranger. She drew her hand away from between his relaxed fingers and saw that he was oblivious of the fact.

When his first gush had spent itself it was as though he came slowly back into the room from some far place, and his eyes became cognisant of her face. He stopped speaking and looked at her in surprise.

“Why, what’s the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing, only I am wondering if I was wise when I went out to the store that day and tried to reform you.”

Instantly he was his old self and very contrite. “I am an ass,” he announced, “I have been babbling my head off. Please forgive me, dear. It’s that silly single-track brain of mine.” He took her hand again, and she let it lie cool and lax in his as he hurried on. “Why, how can you say that it might have been unwise? I can never tell you all that it has meant to me. See already what it has done. And I owe it all to you. I can never thank you enough--never.”

“But you are happy to-day,” she said with apparent irrelevance.

He was conscious of a note of accusation in her voice, and it mystified him. He said, “Why, yes, it’s a big day. The biggest in my business career, I guess.”

Her eyes rested searchingly on his face. “Yes, that’s what counts with men,” she said wearily. “We are different, after all. Well, I am glad for your success, but you must let me go and finish packing now. My train goes in an hour, you know.”

“Good God, Val, I forgot. Can you ever forgive me?”

“I don’t know,” she told him. “It hurts.”

“But I lay awake all last night thinking about you. And this business to-day--I wanted that for you.”

She looked into his rueful face. Suddenly her own changed and softened. She answered slowly, translating an idea into speech as it grew in her own mind: “Yes, I can forgive you. I understand you now. I never guessed that you could lose yourself in an idea like that. It makes you different.”

She stood with her face very close to his. Her eyes seemed to widen with the intensity of her gaze until at last Saint saw fright in them.

“What--what’s the matter?” he stammered.

“Oh,” she cried, “I was so sure that I was right until now. I was so certain I was saving you from defeat. But now I am frightened.” Suddenly her arms were about his neck, her face strained to his breast. “Oh, my dear,” she pleaded, “if you did have it in you to paint and I have blundered--please forgive me, please forgive me!”

Saint laughed softly, reassuringly. He was himself again, and vastly relieved that her fright was not the result of his neglect, but merely a fancied mistake on her own part.

“You funny, intense child,” he said, “of course you were right. I was always meant for business, only I didn’t have the sense to see it until this winter. And then you came and showed me how to go about it.”

PART IV