Part 26 (2/2)
”I like you in this dress. I didn't know dress could so alter a person.”
There was the tone of unrepressed admiration in his voice.
”Hebby is right,” she thought with a fleeting smile. ”He said there was something very effective about black to men--especially to men who know nothing about clothes.”
”I must ask you something,” he continued, speaking in troubled tone. ”This man Hebler--does he know--”
She stopped playing.
”He knows me as you know me, as the thief, and he knows--something else about me.”
Her fingers again found their way to the keys.
Reluctantly he found himself succ.u.mbing to the witchery of her plaintive tone and her quivering lips. Then he rallied and said relentlessly.
”Something worse?”
”Is there anything worse than stealing?” she asked artlessly. ”His acquaintance with me is not exactly of a personal nature. He admits but one of my shortcomings--that he never knows where to find me--literally.
He'd think so more than ever if he could see me now.”
”Does he love you?”
She stopped playing, rose from the piano bench and with an odd little laugh, crossed the room to the window seat. He followed.
”Hebby love me? Well, no! There have been times when I think he positively hated me. But I wish he hadn't come. He brings up--unpleasant memories.”
”Then let's talk of something pleasant--very pleasant. About Marta, Jo's Marta. I met them together yesterday. I had my answer to the question I asked you.”
”They are very happy,” she said wistfully. ”I am so glad.”
”Pen, why did you make me think, that first day I met you, that it was you Jo met and loved in Chicago?”
”Did I make you think so? You a.s.sumed I was the one and I--well, I wouldn't have presumed to dispute the a.s.sertion of anyone in a sheriff line. It's safer not.”
”You asked me not to be hard on little Marta. Who could be? Not even the man you seem to think me to be. I'll do all in my power to help them to build a little home in the hills. And she does love him.”
”Yes,” she said softly. ”She does.”
He looked at her with a little ache in his throat. The moonlight was full on her partly averted face; her profile, clear-cut, delicate, was like a medallion.
”Pen--could you love me?”
The words seemed wrung from him in spite of an apparent determination not to utter them.
She turned and looked straight into his eyes.
”That isn't what you should ask me, unless, you--”
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