"Then why do you have him here?"

The note of reprimand was unconscious, but to the young girl it was plain and her heart thrilled in response to its authority.

"We needed an extra man for our dinner--the dinner that you refused to come to."

She laughed at him in roguish triumph, and it was indescribably charming.

He joined in, shame-faced, mumbling something about his work.

"So you see, Mr. Burrage," she said, "in a sort of way it was your fault."

"It's not my fault that he keeps on coming."

"No, I guess that's mine. I ask him and he has to pay a call. He's _very_ polite about that."

She laughed again, delighted at this second chance, but now he did not join in. Instead he became gravely urgent, much more so than so slight a matter demanded.

"But look here, Miss Alston, what's the sense of doing that? What's the sense of having a person round you don't like?"

She gave a deprecating shrug.

"Oh, well, it's not as bad as all that. I have really nothing against him; he's always entertaining and pleasant and makes things go off well.

It's just my own feeling; I have no reason. I can't discriminate against him because of that."

Mark was silent. It was hateful to him to hear her blaming herself, offering excuses for the truth of her instinct. But he had agreed with Crowder not to tell her, and anyway he had satisfied himself as to her sentiments--she was proof against Mayer's poisonous charm. At this stage he could enlighten her no further; all that now remained for him to do was to give her a hint of that guardianship to which he was pledged.

"It's a big responsibility for you, running a place like this, letting the right people in and keeping the wrong ones out."

"It is, and I don't suppose I do it very well. It was all so new and I was so green."

"Well, it's not a girl's job. You ought to have a watch dog. How would I answer?"

She smiled.

"What would you do--bay on the front steps every time Mr. Mayer came?"

"That's right--show my teeth so he couldn't get at the bell. But, joking apart, I'd like you to look upon me that way--I mean if you ever wanted anyone to consult with. You're just two girls--you might need a man's help--things come up."

The smile died from her lips. She was surprised, gratefully, sweetly surprised.

"Oh, Mr. Burrage, that's very kind of you."

"No, it's not. The kindness would be on your side, the way it has been right along. I'd think a lot of it if you'd let me feel that if you wanted help or advice, or anything of that kind, you'd ask it of me."

Had she looked at him the impa.s.sioned earnestness of his face would have increased her surprise. But she was looking at the ta.s.sel on the chair arm, drawing its strands slowly through her fingers.

"Perhaps I will some day," she murmured.

"Honest--not hesitate to send for me if you ever think I could be of any service to you? Will you promise?"

A woman more experienced, more quick in a perception of surface indications, might have guessed a weightier matter than the young man's words implied. Lorry took them as they were, feeling only the heart behind them.

"Yes, I'll promise," she said.

"Then it's a pact between us. I'll know if you ever want me you'll call on me. And I'll come; I'll come, no matter where I am."

The room was growing dim, dusk stealing out from its corners into the s.p.a.ce near the long windows where they sat. Their figures, solid and dark in the larger solidity of the two armchairs, were motionless, and in the pause following his words, neither stirred or spoke. It was a silence without embarra.s.sment or constraint, a moment of arrested external cognizances. Each felt the other as close, suddenly glimpsed intimate and real, a flash of finer vision that for an instant held them in subtle communion. Then it pa.s.sed and they were saying good-by, moving together into the hall. Fong had not yet lighted the gas and it was very dim there; Mark had to grope for his hat on the stand. He touched her hand in farewell, hardly conscious of the physical contact, heard his own mechanical words and her reply. Then the door opened, shut and he was gone.

Lorry went upstairs to her own room. Her being was permeated with an inner content, radiating like light from a center of peace. She closed her eyes to better feel the comfort of it, to rest upon its infinite a.s.surance. She had no desire to know whence it rose, did not even ask herself if he loved her. From a state of dull distress she had suddenly come into a consciousness of perfect well-being, leaving behind her a past where she had been troubled and lonely. Their paths, wandering and uncertain, had met, converging on some higher level, where they stood together in a deep, enfolding security.

She was still motionless in the gathering dusk when Chrystie entered the room beyond, filling it with silken rustlings and the tapping of high heels. Lorry did not know she was there till she came to the open door and looked in.

"Oh, Lorry, is that you? What are you doing sitting like Patience in a rocking chair?"

"I don't know--thinking, dreaming."

Chrystie withdrew with mutterings; could be heard moving about. Suddenly she exclaimed, "It's a glorious afternoon," and then shut a drawer with a bang. Presently two short, sharp rings sounded from the hall below and following them her voice rose high and animated:

"That's the mail. I'll go and see if there's anything exciting."

Lorry heard her turbulent descent of the stairs and came back to a realization of her environment. In a few minutes Chrystie was in her room again, a little breathless from her race up the long flight.

"There're only two letters," she called. "One for you and one for me."

Lorry was not interested in letters and made no response, and after a pause heard her sister's voice, raised in the same vivacious note:

"Mine's from Lilly Barlow. She wants me to come down on Tuesday and stay over till Friday. They're having a dance."

"A dance--oh, that'll be lovely. When is it to be?"

"Tuesday night. I'm to go down on the evening train and they'll meet me with the motor."

"I'm so glad--you always have a good time there."

Lorry appeared in the doorway. The room was nearly dark, the last blue light slanting in through the uncurtained window. By its faint illumination she saw Chrystie's face in the mirror, glum and unsmiling.

It was not the expression with which the youngest Miss Alston generally greeted calls to festivals.

"What's the matter, Chrystie?" she said. "Don't you want to go?"

The girl wheeled round sharply.

"Of course I do. Why shouldn't I? Did you ever know me not want to go to a dance?"

"Then you'd better write and accept at once. They're probably putting up other people and they'll want to know if you're coming."

"I'll do it tonight. There's no such desperate hurry; I can phone down.

There's your letter on the bureau."

She threw herself on the bed, a long, formless shape in the shadowy corner. She lay there without speaking as Lorry took her letter to the window and read it. It was from Mrs. Kirkham; a friend had sent her a box for the opera on Tuesday night and she invited both girls. It would be a great occasion, everybody was going, Caruso was to sing. Lorry looked up from it, quite dismayed; it was too bad that Chrystie would miss it. But Chrystie from the darkness of the bed said she didn't care; she'd rather dance than hear Caruso, or any other singing man--music bored her anyhow. Lorry left her and went into her own room to write an acceptance for herself and regrets for her sister.