Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/234

226 'Well, then!' I exclaimed.

'But what have you done to it since?'

'I haven't touched it since.'

'You've put nothing else in?'

'Not a line—not a syllable. Don't you remember how you warned me against spoiling it? It's of the thing we read together, liked together, went over and over together; it's of this dear little serious thing of good sense and good faith'—and I held up my roll of proof, shaking it even as Mr. Beston had shaken it—'that he expresses that opinion.'

She frowned at me with an intensity that, though bringing me no pain, gave me a sense of her own. 'Then that's why he has asked me?'

'To do something instead. But something pure. You, he hopes, won't be indecent.'

She sprang up, more mystified than enlightened; she had pieced things together, but they left the question gaping. 'Is he mad? What is he talking about?'

'Oh, I know—now. Has he specified what he wants of you?'

She thought a moment, all before me. 'Yes—to be very "personal."'

'Precisely. You mustn't speak of the work.'

She almost glared. 'Not speak of it?'

'That's indecent.'

'My brother's work?'

'To speak of it.'

She took this from me as she had not taken anything. 'Then how can I speak of him at all?—how can I articulate? He was his work.'

'Certainly he was. But that's not the kind of truth that will stand in Mr. Boston's way. Don't you know what he means by wanting you to be personal?'

In the way she looked at me there was still for a moment a dim desire to spare him—even perhaps a little to save him. None the less, after an instant, she let herself go. 'Something horrible?'