"It's nice for you here," she said, when at last she gave signs of going. "I--I love it. It's so quiet--and--and safe. Nobody knows I come to--to see you."
Her stammering emboldened me to take a liberty.
She was as innocent as a child as she glanced up at me and said:
"It would still be to see you. There's no harm in that."
"Even so, Mr. Brokenshire wouldn't approve of it."
"But he'll never know. It's not the sort of thing any one would think of. I leave the motor down at Sixth Avenue, and this time of year it's so dark. As soon as I heard Miss Davis was leaving I thought how nice the place would be for you."
Since it was useless to make the obvious correction here, I thanked her for her kindness, going on to add:
"But I don't want to get into any trouble."
"No, of course not." She began moving toward the door. "What kind of trouble were you thinking of?"
I wondered whether or not, having taken one liberty, I could take another.
"When I see my boat being caught in the rapids I'm afraid there's a cataract ahead."
It took her some thirty seconds to seize the force of this. Having got it her eyes fell.
"Oh, I see! And does that mean," she went on, her bosom heaving, "that you're afraid of the cataract on your own account--or on mine?"
I paused in our slow drifting toward the door. She was a great lady in the land, and I was nobody. I had much to risk, and I risked it.
"Should I offend you," I asked, deferentially, "if I said--on yours?"
For an instant she became as haughty as so sweet a nature knew how to be, but the prompting passed.
"No; you don't offend me," she said, after a brief pause. "We're friends, aren't we, in spite of--"
Because she was pursuing her own thoughts she allowed that to pass.
"People have gone over cataracts--and still lived."
"Ah, but there's more to existence than life," I exclaimed, promptly.
"There was a friend of my own," she continued, without immediate reference to my observation; "at least she was a friend--I suppose she is still--her name was Madeline Grimshaw--"
"Yes, Mrs. Pyne; but she wasn't Mrs. Brokenshire."
"No; she never was so unhappy." She pressed her handkerchief against the two great tears that rolled down her cheeks. "She did love Mr. Grimshaw at one time, whereas I--"