She won't come now.”
The words reached him in a sigh. The pale hands fluttered from the
keyboard. The fair head dropped. Almost instantly she straightened
herself, banishing her appearance of weariness. “Don't think that I'm
showing the white feather. It's only that I'm exhausted. She won't come
now. I'm sure of it.” Then, bending forward with a nervous tremor, “I
daren't look round. Has he gone?”
Hindwood pushed back his chair from before the hearth. For the moment he
did not answer. He was striving to restore the spell which the intrusion
of her fear had broken. Glancing at her sideways, he regarded her
quietly where she sat at the piano in her widow's garb. Through the
window at her back he caught a glimpse of the garden, shadowy and
patched with moonlight. Above the silence he heard the rumble of waves,
sifting the pebbles on the shore. Who was she, this woman who possessed
the magic to enchant him? Who had been her husband? What kind of man?
Had she loved him? How long since he had died? There were so many
questions.
She had persuaded him into following her, well knowing that he believed
her to be Santa. She had met his discovery of her impersonation with a
threat. When the luck was all in her favor, with the panic of a stricken
conscience she had thrown in her hand. For the past two hours, in this
cozy room, she had surrounded him with shy intimacies of affection, to
the end that the unseen spectator, listening outside the panes, might
be beguiled. Apparently the deception had succeeded; the spectator had
given no sign. It had succeeded too well for Hindwood. It had roused
in him the longing that, behind her pretense of friendship, there might
lurk a genuine emotion of liking. He had tried to forget that the scene
was stage-set. He had wanted to believe that it was real.
“Has he gone?”
There was a break in her voice.
He pulled himself together. “Do you wish me to make certain?”
Rising, he lounged over to the piano as though to select a sheet from
the pile of music. In a flash he turned, wrenching wide the doors of the
French-window, and was across the step in a bound. Nothing rose from the
shadows to disturb the peace of the night. Stooping by the bushes, he
made a hurried examination.
“Come,” he called. Then, seeing how she pressed her hands against her
mouth, “There's no need to fear.”
When she was standing by his side, he explained: “To-morrow you might
think that I'd tricked you. I want you to see for yourself. Here's where
he was hiding when he peered in on me. The ground's trampled. The bushes
are bent back.”
“He may be still here,” she whispered, “in the garden--somewhere.”
Hindwood smiled reassuringly into her upturned face. “He wouldn't do you
any harm if he were. Remember he's a secret service agent. As a matter
of fact, he ought to make you feel safe.”
“Safe!” She knotted her hands against her breast. “Shall I ever feel
safe? Oh, if I could confess--to you, to any one!”
“If it would help----”
Without giving him a chance to finish his sentence, she plucked at his
sleeve with the eagerness of a child. “Would you?”
“What?”
“Let me?”