It was the early twilight, and MacLeod was going to Electra to say
good-by. But first he tapped at Rose's door. He had seen her from time
to time through the day, and nothing of significance had passed between
them. That unbroken level had been exciting to her. She knew he had
things to say, and that he would not go leaving them unspoken; delay was
only the withholding of bad news. Now she came to the door, a fan in her
hand and the summer night reasonably accounting for the breathlessness
she felt. Her pallor made a white spot in the dusk; she was like a
ghost, with all the life drained out of her. MacLeod stepped inside and
closed the door.
"Hot!" he breathed, taking a place by the window.
She could not quite compose herself, and stood near him, fanning him to
give herself a pretext for movement. MacLeod looked up at her, smiling.
He saw how pale she was.
"Why," he said, with his beguiling kindliness, "you mustn't look as if
you were afraid of me."
She moved a little, to escape his eyes.
"No," she said, in a low tone, "I don't mean to be afraid. But I am."
"What of, Rose?"
She wanted to say, from her confused suspicions, that he was inevitably
contemplating some course that would involve her freedom. But he had
turned, and was looking at her in a smiling candor. There was evidently
no more guile in him than in the impartial and cherishing sun.
"I wish life didn't present itself to you as a melodrama," he
volunteered, with almost a brightness of reproach.
She shook her head. The tremulous expectancy of her face remained
unchanged.
"I wish so, too," she answered.
"Well!" He spoke robustly, with a quick decision. "I'm going back. I
shall sail next week."
She drew a quick breath. Ready as she was to disbelieve him, it was
impossible to deny herself an unreasonable relief. She held herself
rigid with anticipation, knowing what the next words would be, and how
he would command or entreat her also to go. But they amazed her.
"Rose," said he, "this may be the last little talk we have together
here. I want to speak to you about your mother."
"My mother!" Unconsciously she drew nearer him. Her mother was--what? A
banished dream, not forgotten, but relegated to dim tapestried chambers
because the air of the present seemed to blur out memory by excess of
light. She had awakened from her girlhood's dreams; to them, chiefly,
her mother had belonged. Now that past beneficence was a faded flower
found in a casket, a scent of beauty touched by time.
"Sit down," said MacLeod, and she obeyed him. He stretched out his legs
at ease, and put his head back, his eyes closed, in an easy
contemplation. "We don't speak of her very often, do we, little girl?"
"No!" Her irrepressible comment was, "I thought you had forgotten her."