the door, flattened his back against the wall, and listened.
“Richard,” he heard Laura say, a vague alarm in her voice, “what is it? What is the matter?”
Then Lindley: “I did not know what to do about it. I couldn’t think of any sensible thing. I suppose what I am doing is the stupidest of all the things I thought of, but at least it’s honest—so I’ve brought it back to you myself. Take it, please.”
There was a crackling of the stiff wrapping paper, a little pause, then a strange sound from Laura. It was not vocal and no more than just audible: it was a prolonged scream in a whisper.
Hedrick ventured an eye at the crack, between the partly open door and its casing. Lindley stood with his back to him, but the boy had a clear view of Laura. She was leaning against the wall, facing Richard, the book clutched in both arms against her bosom, the wrapping paper on the floor at her feet.
“I thought of sending it back and pretending to think it had been left at my mother’s house by mistake,” said Richard sadly, “and of trying to make it seem that I hadn’t read any of it. I thought of a dozen ways to pretend I believed you hadn’t really meant me to read it–-“
Making a crucial effort, she managed to speak.
You—think I—did mean–-“
“Well,” he answered, with a helpless shrug, “you sent it! But it’s what’s in it that really matters, isn’t it? I could have pretended anything in a note, I suppose, if I had written instead of coming. But I found that what I most dreaded was meeting you again, and as we’ve got to meet, of course, it seemed to me the only thing to do was to blunder through a talk with you, somehow or another, and get that part of it over. I thought the longer I put off facing you, the worse it would be for both of us—and—and the more embarrassing. I’m no good at pretending, anyhow; and the thing has happened. What use is there in not being honest? Well?”
She did not try again to speak. Her state was lamentable: it was all in her eyes.
Richard hung his head wretchedly, turning partly away from her. “There’s only one way—to look at it,” he said hesitatingly, and stammering. “That is—there’s only one thing to do: to forget that it’s happened. I’m—I—oh, well, I care for Cora altogether. She’s got never to know about this. She hasn’t any idea or—suspicion of it, has she?”
Laura managed to shake her head.
“She never must have,” he said. “Will you promise me to burn that book now?”
She nodded slowly.
“I—I’m awfully sorry, Laura,” he said brokenly. “I’m not idiot enough not to see that you’re suffering horribly. I suppose I have done the most blundering thing possible.” He stood a moment, irresolute, then turned to the door. “Good-bye.”
Hedrick had just time to dive into the hideous little room of the multitudinous owls as Richard strode into the hall. Then, with the closing of the front door, the boy was back at his post.
Laura stood leaning against the wall, the book clutched in her arms, as Richard had left her. Slowly she began to sink, her eyes wide open, and, with her back against the wall, she slid down until she was sitting upon the floor. Her arms relaxed and hung limp at her sides, letting the book topple over in her lap, and she sat motionless.
One of her feet protruded from her skirt, and the leaping firelight illumined it ruddily. It was a graceful foot in an old shoe which had been resoled and patched. It seemed very still, that patched shoe, as if it might stay still forever. Hedrick knew that Laura had not fainted, but he wished she would move her foot.
He went away. He went into the owl-room again, and stood there silently a long, long time. Then he stole back again toward the library door, but caught a glimpse of that old, motionless shoe through the doorway as he came near. Then he spied no more. He went out to the stable, and, secluding himself in his studio, sat moodily to meditate.
Something was the matter. Something had gone wrong. He had thrown a bomb which he had expected to go off with a stupendous bang, leaving him, as the smoke cleared, looking down in merry triumph, stinging his fallen enemies with his humour, withering them with satire, and inquiring of them how it felt, now THEY were getting it. But he was decidedly untriumphant: he wished Laura had moved her foot and that she hadn’t that patch upon her shoe. He could not get his mind off that patch. He began to feel very queer: it seemed to be somehow because of the patch. If she had worn a pair of new shoes that morning… . Yes, it was that patch.
Thirteen is a dangerous age: nothing is more subtle. The boy, inspired to play the man, is beset by his own relapses into childhood, and Hedrick was near a relapse.
By and by, he went into the house again, to the library. Laura was not there, but he found the fire almost smothered under heaping ashes. She had burned her book.
He went into the room where the piano was, and played “The Girl on the Saskatchewan” with one finger; then went out to the porch and walked up and down, whistling cheerily.
After that, he went upstairs and asked Miss Peirce how his father was “feeling,” receiving a noncommital reply; looked in at Cora’s room; saw that his mother was lying asleep on Cora’s bed and Cora herself examining the contents of a dressing-table drawer; and withdrew. A moment later, he stood in the passage outside Laura’s closed door listening. There was no sound.
He retired to his own chamber, found it unbearable, and, fascinated by Laura’s, returned thither; and, after standing a long time in the passage, knocked softly on the door.
“Laura,” he called, in a rough and careless voice, “it’s kind of a pretty day outdoors. If you’ve had your nap, if I was you I’d go out for a walk.” There was no response. “I’ll go with you,” he added, “if you want me to.”
He listened again and heard nothing. Then he turned the knob softly. The door was unlocked; he opened it and went in.
Laura was sitting in a chair, with her back to a window, her hands in her lap. She was staring straight in front of her.
He came near her hesitatingly, and at first she did not seem to see him or even to know that she was not alone in the room. Then she looked at him wonderingly, and, as he stood beside her, lifted her right hand and set it gently upon his head.
