He was regarding her with a smile in his eyes that she could not
interpret; her graceful head was thrown back against the mass of fluffy
white upon the chair, the white softening the outlines of a face that
surely needed not softening; the clear, unshrinking eyes meeting his
with all her truth in them; the blue ribbon at her throat, the gray
cashmere falling around her, touched him with a sense of fitness; the
slight hands clasping each other in her lap, slight even with their
strength, partly annoyed, partly baffled him. Mr. Hammerton had told her
that she had wilful hands.
Regarding Tessa Wadsworth as regarding some other things, Ralph Towne
thought because he felt; he could not think any further than he thought
to-day, because he had not felt any further.
There was another friend in her life who with Tessa Wadsworth as with
some other things felt because he thought, and he could not feel any
further than he felt to-day because he had not thought any further.
For the first time since she had known Ralph Towne, she was wishing that
he were like Gus Hammerton. It had never occurred to her before to wish
that he would change.
Each smiled under the survey. He was thinking, "I wish I loved you." She
was thinking, "You are a dear, big boy; I wish you were more manly."
"You did not send me the poem you promised."
"You said you would come soon."
"Did you expect me?"
"Had I any reason to doubt your word?"
"You must not take literally all I say," he answered with irritation.
"I have learned that. I have studied the world's arithmetic, but I do
not use it to solve any word of yours, any more than I have supposed
that you would use it to find the meaning of any problem you might
discover in my attitude towards you."
"It is best not to dig and delve for a meaning, Miss Tessa; society
sanctions many phrases that you would not speak in sincerity."
"Society!" she repeated in a tone that brought the color to his
forehead. "Is society my law-giver?"
It was very pleasant to be loved by a woman like this woman; he could
not understand her, but she touched him like the perfume of the white
rose, or the note of the thrush. His next words were sincere and abrupt.
"You asked me some time since to burn the package of poems you have
written for me. If I had done as much for you, would you destroy them?"
A flush, a dropping of the eyes, and a low laugh answered him.
He arose quickly, with a motion of tossing off an ugly sensation. "I am
very much engaged; I do not know when I can come again. We are going
west for the winter."
She could not lift her eyes, or speak, or catch her breath. She arose,
slowly, as if the movement were almost too great an effort, and stood
leaning against the tall chair, her fingers fumbling with the fringe of
the tidy; the room had become so darkened that the white fringe was but
a dark outline of something that she could feel.
"Sue Greyson is to accompany my mother; I shall be much away, and I do
not like to leave her with strangers."
"Sue is pleasant and lively." She had spoken, and now she could, not
quite clearly yet, but a glance revealed the blood surging to his
forehead, the veins swollen in his temples, even through the heavy
mustache she discerned the twitching of his lips. The pain in her heart
had opened her eyes wide. Had he come to make the parting final? What
had she done that he should thus thrust her away outside of all the
interests in his life? Did he know how she cared, and was he so sorry?
Was he trying to be "patient," as his mother had advised--patient with
her for taking him at his word?
Dunellen had called her proud; this instant she was as humble as a
child.