Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/184

176 Miss Hamer looked away—looked now at the clock; but it was none the less apparent that she understood. 'Well—she of course has a horror of that. I mean of doing anything herself.'

'Then why does she go so far?'

Margaret still looked at the clock. 'So far?'

'With me, month after month, in every sort of way!'

Moving away from the fire, she gave him an irrelevant smile. 'Though I am to be alone, my time's up.'

He kept his eyes on her. 'Women don't feed for themselves, but they do dress, eh?'

'I must go to my room.'

'But that isn't an answer to my question.'

She thought a moment. 'About poor Kate's going so far? I thought your complaint was of her not going far enough.'

'It all depends,' said Reeve, impatiently, 'upon her having some truth in her. She shouldn't do what she does if she doesn't care for me.'

'She does care for you,' said the girl.

'Well then, damn it, she should do much more!'

Miss Hamer put out her hand. 'Good-bye. I'll speak to her.'

Reeve held her fast. 'She does care for me?'

She hesitated but an instant. 'Far too much. It's excessively awkward.'

He still detained her, pressing her with his sincerity, almost with his crudity. 'That's exactly why I've come to you.' Then he risked: 'You know!' But he faltered.

'I know what?'

'Why, what it is.'

She threw back her head, releasing herself. 'To be impertinent? Never!' She fairly left him—the man was in the hall to let him out; and he walked away with a sense not diminished, on the whole, of how viciously fate had seasoned his draught. Yet he believed Margaret Hamer would speak for him. She had a kind of nobleness.