She stood before me for just a moment undecided. The twilight was
coming and the room was dim.
"Auntie will miss me," said she, "after a time."
"I have missed you all the time," was my reply.
"But you sent for me?"
"Of course I did. Doesn't this look as though I had?"
"I don't quite understand----"
"Shall I call Jimmy to explain? He called you a heartless jade----"
"The little imp! How dare he!"
"--As in fact all of our brotherhood has come to call you: 'The
heartless jade.'"
"I made fudges for him! And the little wretch told me I wasn't playing
the game! What did he mean? Oh, Harry, I wouldn't have come if I
hadn't wanted to play the game fairly. I'm sorry for what I said." She
spoke now suddenly, impulsively.
"What was it you said?"
"When I said--when I called you--a coward. I didn't mean it."
"You said it."
"But not the way you thought. I only meant, you took an unfair
advantage of a girl, running off with her, this way, and giving her no
chance to--to get away. But now you do give me a chance--you meant to,
all along--and in every way, as I've just done telling auntie, you've
been perfectly fine, perfectly splendid, perfectly bully, too! It has
been a hard place for a man, too, but--Harry, dear boy, I'll have to
say it, you've been some considerable gentleman through it all! There
now!" And she stood, aloof, agitated, very likely flushed, though I
could not tell in the dark.
"Thank you, Helena," I said.
"And as to your being any other sort of a coward--that you had
physical fear--that you wouldn't do a man's part--why, I never did
mean that at all. How could I? And if I had--why, even Auntie Lucinda
said your going out after that Chinaman the other night was
heroic--even if he couldn't have cooked a bit!--and you know Auntie
Lucinda has always been against you."
"Yes, and you both called me a coward, because I quit my law office
and ran away from misfortune."
"Yes, we did. And I meant that, too! I say it now to your face, Harry.
But maybe I don't know all about that----"
"Maybe not."
"Well, I wouldn't want to be unjust, of course, but I don't think a
man ought to throw away his life. You're young. You could start over
again, and you ought to have tried. Your father made his own money,
and so did my father--why, look at the Sally M. mine, that has given
me my own fortune. Do you suppose that grew on a bush to be shaken
off? So why couldn't you go out in the same way and do something in
the world--I don't mean just make money, you know, but do something?
That's what a girl likes. And you were able enough. You are young and
strong, and you have your education; and I've heard my father say,
before he died--and other men agreed with him--that you were the best
lawyer at our bar, and that you had an extraordinary mind, and a clear
sense of justice, and, and----"