The cab had stopped, but it needed a movement from his companion to remind him that the journey was done. He got out, aided her to alight, and unlatched the door. As yet, neither had spoken. On entering the house Claire made directly for the stairs.
“Don’t go up yet; I want a word with you,” he muttered, and glanced at the banisters above.
“What is it?” She halted and turned. The cheeks were still pale, and the white fur of her wrap increased the pallor of her face.
He put his hat and coat aside, and, raising the curtain of the sitting-room, motioned her to enter.
For a second she hesitated and looked at him inquisitorially, the brow contracted; then, gathering a fold of her frock, she obeyed the gesture, and, entering the room, she stood, her wrap drawn about her, her head thrown back, one foot beating a measure impatiently on the floor.
Gonfallon glanced again at the banisters and let the curtain fall. “Claire,” he began, “there is but one explanation of what occurred this evening. The fault, perhaps, is partly mine. I had intended on my return from Bronx to take immediate action in regard to your father, but you forestalled me. You forestalled me, moreover, in a manner which—which—well, of which the least said the better. Fortunately, matters are not as bad as they might be. You have been exceedingly imprudent, and I have been remiss. As for that young man, his mere presence is sufficient to tarnish a dawn. From your own demeanor, from things which Ruth has let fall, I understand that he is as objectionable to you as he is to me. The obligation which he has placed us all under must of course be cancelled, and to that I will attend; but hereafter it is impossible for you to see him again. You agree with me, do you not?”
In and about the girl’s mobile lips a sneer hovered like a bee on a rose. Leisurely she undid her cloak. “Not in the least,” she answered.
“But you know I dislike him; you know—”
“And why should you?” Her head, which had been thrown back, she now held a trifle to one side. “And why should you? Has he ever done you a kindness?” She paused a second, and added, “You dislike my father too, don’t you?”
The thrust was keen and venomous as the tooth of a rat. But on her mouth the sneer was so quickly effaced by a smile that one might have thought that in her heart a bird had suddenly burst into song.
At the change in her expression Gonfallon forgot to heed the taunt. “He is unprincipled, Claire—”
“Ah! He is unprincipled, is he? And what of it? You have no principles of your own to boast of. No, Chris, you have none.”
She pointed at him. On the end of her finger were all sorts of pretty gestures, and in her face, to which some trace of color had returned, was the mimic of a child saying, Fi! “You must find a better reason than that.”
At the movement of her hand the wrap fell from her. She was bare of neck and of arm. Her frock was after that English model which gives some freedom to the limbs yet keeps the waist well girt. It was colorless yet scintillant, and in it, with the white of the fur at her feet, it needed little imagination to fancy her a statue of Injustice vacating its niche.
The slender finger still extended seemed to pierce him like a gibe. “You must find a better reason than that,” she repeated; “you must, indeed.” Her smile had bubbled into a ripple, her eyes laughed, and she flushed.
Gonfallon’s breath came faster. He had been staring at her. “It is because I love you, Claire,” he whispered. And in a moment he caught her to him and pressed her lips of silk to his. At their emollient touch his anger evaporated as utterly as had it never been. “Sweetheart,” he murmured, “it is because you are more than all the world to me.”
He gazed into her deep eyes’ depth. Instead of an answering gleam, there was in them an apathy, stagnant and unmoved. “Sweetheart,” he repeated, and as he did so the eyes into which he gazed dilated as at some sudden dread. From behind him came a smothered cry. His arms fell again to his side, and he wheeled about. In the doorway Ruth stood, her face barred by a shadow. Claire stooped for her cloak, and Gonfallon bit his lip.
Ruth advanced to where they stood. Her face now they could see had on it the stamp of unvanquishable pain, seared in, immutable and already cold. She glanced from one to the other.
“Claire,” she said, and as she spoke her words fell from her very swiftly, unseparated by intervals, as though in speech relief might be—“Claire, our mother died when you were born. The first thought I ever had was of your good. The earliest effort I ever made I made for you. I tried to be not a sister alone, I tried to replace the mother you had lost. I have failed.”
Claire made as though to speak, but already Ruth had turned to Gonfallon.
“Christopher, the first dream of my girlhood belonged to you. The only thoughts I did not give to Claire were those I gave to you. You took so many, Christopher! I gave you my whole heart; I thought you gave me yours. I was
