I knew you'd believe I'd come. 'She's little'--that was what I kept
saying to myself again and again. 'And she'll cry--awfully--and
she'll think I did it. She'll never know.' There,"--he hesitated
a moment--"there was a kind of mad shame in it. As if I'd BETRAYED
your littleness and your belief, though I was too young to know
what betraying was."
Just as she had looked at him before, "as if he could give her
everything," she was looking at him now. In what other way could
she look while he gave her this wonderful soothing, binding softly
all the old wounds with unconscious, natural touch because he had
really been all her child being had been irradiated and warmed
by. There was no pose in his manner--no sentimental or flirtatious
youth's affecting of a picturesque attitude. It was real and he
told her this thing because he must for his own relief.
"Did you cry?" he said. "Did my little chap's conceit make too
much of it? I suppose I ought to hope it did."
Robin put her hand softly against her heart.
"No," she answered. "I was only a baby, but I think it KILLED
something--here."
He caught a big hard breath.
"Oh!" he said and for a few seconds simply sat and gazed at her.
"But it came to life again?" he said afterwards.
"I don't know. I don't know what it was. Perhaps it could only
live in a very little creature. But it was killed.
Pages:
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441