Part 1 (2/2)
Combating again an almost overwhelming desire to stand in awed wors.h.i.+p, he advanced hastily, speaking with a diffidence and an incoherence utterly foreign to his usual blithe boyishness.
”Oh, I hope--I didn't, did I? _Did_ I wake--the baby up?”
With a start the girl turned, her blue eyes wide.
”_You?_ Oh, in the library--”
”Yes; an hour ago. I do hope I didn't--wake him up!”
Before the ardent admiration in the young man's eyes, the girl's fell.
”Oh, no, sir. He just--woke himself.”
”Oh, I'm so glad! And--and I want you to forgive me for--for staring at you so rudely. You see, I was so surprised to--to see you there like--like a picture, and-- You will forgive me--er-- I don't know your name.”
”Barnet--Helen Barnet.” She blushed prettily; then she laughed, throwing him a mischievous glance. ”Oh, yes, I'll forgive you; but--I don't know your name, either.”
”Thank you. I knew you'd--understand. I'm Denby--Burke Denby.”
”Mr. Denby's son?”
”Yes.”
”Oh-h!”
At the admiration in her eyes and voice he unconsciously straightened himself.
”And do you live--here?” breathed the girl.
To hide the inexplicable emotion that seemed suddenly to be swelling within him, the young man laughed lightly.
”Of course--when I'm not away!” His eyes challenged her, and she met the sally with a gurgle of laughter.
”Oh, I meant--when you're not away,” she bridled.
He watched the wild-rose color sweep to her temples--and stepped nearer.
”But you haven't told me a thing of yourself--yet,” he complained.
She sighed--and at the sigh an unreasoning wrath against an unknown something rose within him.
”There's nothing to tell,” she murmured. ”I'm just here--a nurse to Master Paul and his brother.” Denby's wrath became reasoning and definite. It was directed against the world in general, and his aunt in particular, that they should permit for one instant this glorious creature to sacrifice her charm and sweetness on the altar of menial services to a couple of unappreciative infants.
”Oh, I'm so sorry!” he breathed, plainly aglow at the intimate nearness of this heart-to-heart talk. ”But I'm glad--you're _here_!”
Once more, before he turned reluctantly away, he gazed straight into her blue eyes--and the game was on.
It was a pretty game. The young man was hard hit, and it was his first wound from Cupid's dart. Heretofore in his curriculum girls had not been included; and the closeness of his a.s.sociation with his father had not been conducive to incipient love affairs. Perhaps, for these reasons, he was all the more ardent a wooer. Certainly an ardent wooer he was. There was no gainsaying that--though the boy himself, at first, did not recognize it as wooing at all.
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