She put up her hand to brush them away when she heard the distress in his voice.
"I"m all right--oh, please, if you wouldn"t!" for he had caught her hand and was kissing it pa.s.sionately.
He went on pleading, praying, imploring, in his boy"s voice; for he was very sincere, and he had suffered more for her sake and the neglect which he knew she was receiving from Chris than from the hopelessness of his own cause.
He would make her so happy, he said; they would go away together abroad somewhere. He hadn"t got any money--at least, only a little-- but he"d work like the very deuce if he had her to work for.
She put her hand over his lips then to silence him.
"Tommy, dear, don"t!"
His name was not Tommy, but everybody had called him Tommy for so long because it seemed to go naturally with his surname that now he had almost forgotten what he had really been christened, but it sounded sweet from Marie"s lips, and he kissed pa.s.sionately the little hand that would have silenced his pleading.
"I love you--I love you!" he said again.
She shook her head. She knew that she ought to have been angry with him, but there was something very comforting to her sore heart in this boy"s love.
"It"s no good. Tommy," she said gently, "and you know it isn"t.
Even if I cared for you--and I don"t, not in that way--you"re so young, and ... and I"m married ..." And then, with a very real burst of emotion, she added: "We were such good friends, and now you"ve gone and spoilt it all."
"I couldn"t help it--it had to come--and I"m glad. I"ve never felt like a friend to you. I thought you knew it, but if you want me to I"ll go on being your friend all my life," he added inconsequently.
Her tears came again at that, and Tommy got out his handkerchief--a nice, soft silk one which he had faintly scented for the occasion-- and wiped her eyes for her, and reproached himself, and comforted her all in a breath, till she looked up and smiled again.
"And now we"ve been thoroughly foolish," she said with a little sob, "please be a dear, and take me for a walk."
"It hasn"t been foolishness," he answered, with a new manliness that surprised her and made her feel a little ashamed. "I love you, and I shall always love you, but if you only want me for a friend-- well, that"s all there is to be said."
She took his hand and held it hard for a moment.
"You"re a kind boy, Tommy."
He looked away from her because he was afraid to trust himself.
"What about that walk?" he asked gruffly.
They went for the walk--a very silent walk it was, for neither of them felt inclined to talk, and later, when they parted outside the house, young Atkins asked anxiously:
"It"s all right, isn"t it? I mean--everything is just the same as it was before ... before I told you?"
"Yes--of course." But she knew that it was not, that it never could be, though during the next day or two they both struggled valiantly to get back to the old happy plane of friendship.
And one evening Tommy said abruptly as they were driving home together from a theater:
"Marie--I"m not coming any more," and then, as she did not answer, he went on desperately: "I just--can"t!"
Marie sat quite still, her hands clasped in her lap, her brown eyes fixed on a little pale moon that was climbing the dark sky outside.
She had thought a great deal of this boy"s friendship and now she knew that she was to lose it.
She tried to think of Chris, but somehow it seemed difficult; it was so long since she had seen him, and he was so far away.
If only she did not still love him! If only she could fill the place he had occupied all these years of her life with something else--even someone else.
Then she looked at young Atkins. He was only a boy! Young as she was herself, she felt years and years older than he, and there was something motherly in her voice as she said gently:
"Very well. Tommy--I understand."
He laughed hoa.r.s.ely.
"Do you? I don"t think you do," he said.
They parted with just an ordinary handshake, and with no more words, but Marie stood for a long time at the door after it had been opened to her, watching young Atkins walk away down the street.
He was going out of her life, she knew, and for a moment she was cruelly tempted to recall him.
Why not? Chris had his own friends, and did not trouble about her.
She wondered what he was doing now, and if he, too, was somewhere out in the moonlight with ... with somebody who was more to him than she was.
The thought brought a tide of jealousy rushing to her heart. She ran down the steps again to the path below. She would call Tommy back. Why should she have no happiness? Boy as he was, he loved her, and his love would be something s.n.a.t.c.hed from the ruins of her life.
But after the first impulsive step she stood still with a sense of utter futility. What was the good? What was the use of trying to deceive herself?
There was only one man in the world for her--nothing could ever change that; she turned and went back into the house.
"Tommy isn"t coming any more." she told Miss Chester the next morning.
She smiled as her eyes met the old lady"s.
"No, I didn"t send him away, dear," she added. "He just said he shouldn"t come any more."
Miss Chester paused for a moment in her knitting. She was always knitting--a shawl that never seemed to be finished.
"I always said he was a thorough gentleman," was her only comment.
But Marie missed him during the days that followed. She had no sc.r.a.p of love for him, but his friendship had meant a great deal to her, and left to herself she drifted back once again to restless depression.
Then at last a letter came from Chris.
"Knight is going back to London, so I may come with him. I hope you are all right, Marie Celeste. The time has simply flown up here; I was horrified yesterday to discover that I"ve been away a month."
There was no mention of Dorothy Webber or of Feathers.
Marie"s spirits rose like mercury. She was so excited she could hardly sleep or eat, but all the time she tried to check her joy with the warning that he might not come, that he might change his mind at the last moment. She bought herself some new frocks and went to bed early to try and drive the shadows from her eyes and bring back the color to her pale cheeks.
Then came a postcard--a picture postcard of mountains in the background and a very modern-looking clubhouse in the foreground, with a scribbled message from Chris at the corner.
"Shall be home Thursday night to dinner."