She lifted a collar she was ironing and examined it, but made no reply.
"You knew what already?" he repeated. "That I was in love with you?"
She nodded, still regarding the collar.
"Impossible!"
She laid the collar beside other collars already ironed and took up
another; but he heard no answer.
"How did you know?" he asked. "From what?"
"From various things."
"What things?"
There was no reply.
"From things I did?"
She nodded, rather solemnly, and her face, what he could see of
it--seemed very serious. Pats was watching her intently, and exclaimed,
in surprise:
"That is very curious, for I kept it to myself!"
"Any woman would have known."
Pats leaned back, and frowned. A torturing thought possessed him. In an
anxious tone he said: "I hope I did not talk much when I had the fever."
As she made no reply he studied the back of her head for some responsive
motion. But none came.
"Did I?" he demanded.
"Yes."
A look of terror came into his face and his voice grew fainter as he
asked: "Did I talk about you?"
"Freely."
With trembling fingers he felt for his handkerchief and drew it across
his brow. "Did I say things that--that--I should be ashamed of?"
She nodded.
Pats sunk lower in his chair and closed his eyes. Judging from the lines
in his cadaverous face the last three minutes had added years to his
age.
"Would you mind telling me," he asked in a deferential voice, so low
that it barely reached her, "whether they were impertinent and
ungentlemanly--or--or--what?"
"Everything."
His lips were dry, and on his face came a look of anguish--of
unspeakable shame. There was a pause, broken only by the faint sound of
the flatiron.
"Then I really talked about you--at one time?"
She nodded.
"More than once?"
"For days together."
Pats closed his eyes in pain, and there was a silence. Then he opened
them: "Would you mind telling me some of the things I said?"
"I could not remember."
"Have you forgotten _all_?"
"No--but I prefer not repeating them."
On Pats's face the look of shame deepened. In a very low voice he said:
"Please remember that I was not myself."
"I make allowance for that."
"Excuse my asking, but if I was out of my head and irresponsible, what
could I have said to make you believe that I was--in love with you?"
"You protested so violently that you were not."
With unspeakable horror and humiliation Pats began to realize the awful
possibilities of that divulgence of his most secret thoughts. A cold
chill crept up his spine. He looked down at the floor, from fear that
she might glance in his direction and meet his eyes. Solomon, who felt
there was trouble in the air, came nearer and placed his cold wet snout
against the clinched hands of his master; but the hands were
unresponsive.
At last, the stricken man mustered courage enough to stammer in a
constrained voice:
"It is not from curiosity I ask it, but would you mind telling
me--giving me at least some idea of what I said?"
Elinor carefully deposited a neatly folded handkerchief upon a little
pile of other handkerchiefs. Then, looking down at the table and not at
Pats, she said calmly, as she continued her work:
"You said I was a pious hypocrite--coldblooded and heartless--and a
fool. You repeated a great many times that I was superior, pretentious,
and 'everlastingly stuck on myself,'--I think that was the expression.
Of course, I cannot repeat your own words. They were forcible, but
exceedingly profane."
"Oh!"
"You kept mentioning three other men who could have me for all you
cared."
Pats felt himself blushing. He frowned, grew hot, and bit his lip.
Mingled with his mortification came an impotent rage. He felt that
behind her contempt she was laughing at him. As there was a pause, he
muttered bitterly:
"Go on."
But she continued silently with her ironing.
"Please go on. Tell me more; the worst. I should like to know it."
Raising one of the handkerchiefs higher for a closer examination, she
added: "You sang comic songs, inserting my name, and with language I
supposed no gentlemen could use."
Pats gasped. His cheeks tingled. In shame he closed his eyes. The
ticking of the old clock behind the door seemed to hammer his
degradation still deeper into his aching soul. As his wandering,
miserable gaze encountered the marble face of the Marshal of France he
thought the old soldier was watching him in contemptuous enjoyment.
But Elinor went on quietly with her ironing.
Suddenly into his feverish brain there came a thought, heaven-born,
inspiring. It lifted him to his feet. With a firm stride he approached
the table. No legs could have done it better. He stood beside her, but
she turned her back as she went on with the ironing. His expression was
of a man exalted, yet anxious; and he spoke in a low but unruly voice.
"You say you have known I was in love with you ever since the fever?"
She nodded slightly, without looking up.
"And yet you have been very--kind, and not--not annoyed or offended.
Perhaps after all, you--you--oh, please turn around!"
But she did not turn, so he stepped around in front. Into her cheeks had
come a sudden color, and in her eyes he saw the light that lifts a lover
to the highest heaven.
It was Pat's cry of joy and his impulsive and somewhat violent embrace
of this lady that awakened the dog reposing by the door. Looking in the
direction of the voice Solomon seemed to see but a single figure. This
was a natural mistake. In another moment, however, he realized that
extraordinary things were happening,--that these two distinct and
separate beings with a single outline signified some momentous change in
human life. Whether from an over-mastering sympathy, from envy,
delicacy, or disgust, Solomon looked the other way. Then, thoughtfully,
with drooping head, he walked slowly out and left the lovers to
themselves.
[Illustration]
X