"I thank you, Miss Brooks," he said gravely, "for your thoughtfulness, although I hope I could have still proven my innocence to Mr. Carstone, even if some unknown woman tried my door by mistake, and was seen doing it. But I am pained to think that YOU could have believed me capable of so wanton and absurd an impropriety--and such a gross disrespect to your mother's house.""But," said Cherry with childlike naivete, "you know YOU don't think anything of such things, and that's what I told mother.""You told your mother THAT?"
"Oh yes--I told her Tappington says it's quite common with young men. Please don't laugh--for it's very dreadful. Tappington didn't laugh when he told it to me as a warning. He was shocked.""But, my dear Miss Brooks"--"There--now you're angry--and that's as bad. Are you sure you didn't know that woman?""Positive!"
"Yet you seemed very anxious just now that she should wait till you opened the door.""That was perfectly natural."
"I don't think it was natural at all."
"But--according to Tappington"--"Because my brother is very good you need not make fun of him.""I assure you I have no such intention. But what more can I say?
I give you my word that I don't know who that unlucky woman was.
No doubt she may have been some nearsighted neighbor who had mistaken the house, and I dare say was as thoroughly astonished at my voice as I was at hers. Can I say more? Is it necessary for me to swear that since I have been here no woman has ever entered that door--but"--"But who?"
"Yourself."
"I know what you mean," she said hurriedly, with her old frightened look, gliding to the outer door. "It's shameful what I've done.
But I only did it because--because I had faith in you, and didn't believe what they said was true." She had already turned the lock.
There were tears in her pretty eyes.
"Stop," said Herbert gently. He walked slowly towards her, and within reach of her frightened figure stopped with the timid respect of a mature and genuine passion. "You must not be seen going out of that door," he said gravely. "You must let me go first, and, when I am gone, lock the door again and go through the hall to your own room. No one must know that I was in the house when you came in at that door. Good-night."Without offering his hand he lifted his eyes to her face. The dimples were all there--and something else. He bowed and passed out.
Ten minutes later he ostentatiously returned to the house by the front door, and proceeded up the stairs to his own room. As he cast a glance around he saw that the music-stool had been moved before the fire, evidently with the view of attracting his attention. Lying upon it, carefully folded, was the veil that she had worn. There could be no doubt that it was left there purposely. With a smile at this strange girl's last characteristic act of timid but compromising recklessness, after all his precautions, he raised it tenderly to his lips, and then hastened to hide it from the reach of vulgar eyes. But had Cherry known that its temporary resting-place that night was under his pillow she might have doubted his superior caution.
When he returned from the bank the next afternoon, Cherry rapped ostentatiously at his door. "Mother wishes me to ask you," she began with a certain prim formality, which nevertheless did not preclude dimples, "if you would give us the pleasure of your company at our Church Festival to-night? There will be a concert and a collation. You could accompany us there if you cared. Our friends and Tappington's would be so glad to see you, and Dr. Stout would be delighted to make your acquaintance.""Certainly!" said Herbert, delighted and yet astounded. "Then," he added in a lower voice, "your mother no longer believes me so dreadfully culpable?""Oh no," said Cherry in a hurried whisper, glancing up and down the passage; "I've been talking to her about it, and she is satisfied that it is all a jealous trick and slander of these neighbors.
Why, I told her that they had even said that I was that mysterious woman; that I came that way to you because she had forbidden my seeing you openly.""What! You dared say that?"
"Yes don't you see? Suppose they said they HAD seen me coming in last night--THAT answers it," she said triumphantly.
"Oh, it does?" he said vacantly.
"Perfectly. So you see she's convinced that she ought to put you on the same footing as Tappington, before everybody; and then there won't be any trouble. You'll come, won't you? It won't be so VERYgood. And then, I've told mother that as there have been so many street-fights, and so much talk about the Vigilance Committee lately, I ought to have somebody for an escort when I am coming home. And if you're known, you see, as one of US, there'll be no harm in your meeting me.""Thank you," he said, extending his hand gratefully.
Her fingers rested a moment in his. "Where did you put it?" she said demurely.
"It? Oh! IT'S all safe," he said quickly, but somewhat vaguely.
"But I don't call the upper drawer of your bureau safe," she returned poutingly, "where EVERYBODY can go. So you'll find it NOWinside the harmonium, on the keyboard."
"Oh, thank you."
"It's quite natural to have left it there ACCIDENTALLY--isn't it?"she said imploringly, assisted by all her dimples. Alas! she had forgotten that he was still holding her hand. Consequently, she had not time to snatch it away and vanish, with a stifled little cry, before it had been pressed two or three times to his lips. Alittle ashamed of his own boldness, Herbert remained for a few moments in the doorway listening, and looking uneasily down the dark passage. Presently a slight sound came over the fanlight of Cherry's room. Could he believe his ears? The saint-like Cherry--no doubt tutored, for example's sake, by the perfect Tappington--was softly whistling.