The reading of this letter made many eyes glisten, and a dead silence hushed the whole circle. All at once Delilah, our pretty table-maid, forgot her place,--what business had she to be listening to our conversation and reading?--and began sobbing, just as if she had been a lady. She could n't help it, she explained afterwards,--she had a little blind sister at the asylum, who had told her about Helen's reading to the children.
It was very awkward, this breaking-down of our pretty Delilah, for one girl crying will sometimes set off a whole row of others,--it is as hazardous as lighting one cracker in a bunch. The two Annexes hurried out their pocket-handkerchiefs, and I almost expected a semi-hysteric cataclysm. At this critical moment Number Five called Delilah to her, looked into her face with those calm eyes of hers, and spoke a few soft words. Was Number Five forgetful, too? Did she not remember the difference of their position? I suppose so. But she quieted the poor handmaiden as simply and easily as a nursing mother quiets her unweaned baby. Why are we not all in love with Number Five? Perhaps we are. At any rate, I suspect the Professor. When we all get quiet, I will touch him up about that visit she promised to make to his laboratory.
I got a chance at last to speak privately with him.
“Did Number Five go to meet you in your laboratory, as she talked of doing?”
“Oh, yes, of course she did,--why, she said she would!”
“Oh, to be sure. Do tell me what she wanted in your laboratory.”
“She wanted me to burn a diamond for her.”
“Burn a diamond! What was that for? Because Cleopatra swallowed a pearl?”
“No, nothing of that kind. It was a small stone, and had a flaw in it. Number Five said she did n't want a diamond with a flaw in it, and that she did want to see how a diamond would burn.”
“That was all. She brought the two Annexes with her, and I gave my three visitors a lecture on carbon, which they seemed to enjoy very much.”
I looked steadily in the Professor's face during the reading of the following poem. I saw no questionable look upon it,--but he has a remarkable command of his features. Number Five read it with a certain archness of expression, as if she saw all its meaning, which I think some of the company did not quite take in. They said they must read it slowly and carefully. Somehow, “I like you” and “I love you” got a little mixed, as they heard it. It was not Number Five's fault, for she read it beautifully, as we all agreed, and as I knew she would when I handed it to her.