"Then if you know what I am you must know, too, that I couldn't do other than care for a man who's given up so much for my sake."
"You couldn't do other than admire him. You couldn't do other than be grateful to him. You probably couldn't do other than want to stand by him through thick and thin--"
"Exactly--which is what I'm saying. It's so near it that you don't know the difference, and won't know the difference till--till the real thing affords you the contrast."
"Only that. You see," he smiled, "the expert by experience has learnt a little; but the expert by intuition knows it all."
"Then, when I need information on the subject, I'll come to you."
"And I'll promise to give it to you frankly."
"Thanks," I said, sweetly. "But you'll wait till I come, won't you? And in the mean time, you'll not say any more about it."
"Does that mean that I'm not to say any more about it ever--or only for to-night?"
I knew, suddenly, what the question meant to me. I took time to see that I was shutting a door which my heart cried out to have left open. But I answered, still sweetly and with a smile:
"Suppose we make it that you won't say any more about it--ever?"
He gazed at me; I gazed at him. A long half-minute went by before he uttered the words, very slowly and deliberately:
"I won't say any more about it--for to-night."
On Thursday Mr. Grainger came to the library to tea, but notwithstanding her suggestion Mrs. Brokenshire did not. She came, however, on Friday when he did not. For some time after that he came daily.
Toward me his manner had little variation; he was courteous and distant. I cannot say that he ever had tea with me, for even if he accepted a cup, which he did from time to time, as if keeping up a rôle, he carried it to some distant corner of the room where he was either examining the objects or making their acquaintance. He came about half past four and went about half past five, always appearing from the house and retiring by the same way. In the house itself, as I understood from Mrs. Daly, he displayed an interest he had not shown for years.
"It's out of wan room and into another, and raisin' the shades and pushin' the furniture about, till you'd swear he was goin' to be married."