To Tarbot, who had been experimenting, analyzing, thinking hard, who was almost worn out in consequence, she suddenly appeared as almost a vision of beauty.
He looked up as she entered, carrying a little tray. It contained tea and toast. With a flash of quick thought he remembered afresh her expression of the night before—that she held the ace of trumps in her hand. He knew that if he could give her any affection she would be his forever. At that moment, with this thought in his head, she was almost attractive to him.
“You should not stay up all night,” she said. “I have brought you this. Sit down and let me pour you out a cup of tea.”
He sank into the nearest chair. She poured out the tea, putting in the amount of sugar and cream that he liked. She brought the fragrant cup to his side, and buttering a piece of toast, put it on a plate and laid it on a little table near by. As he lifted the cup to his lips his eyes fixed themselves on her face.
“You are an extraordinary woman,” he began. “When I think of you as——”
“As what, Luke?” she asked eagerly, for there seemed to her at that moment to be a new note in his voice. If, after all, he was beginning to love her, if by any chance that passion which she felt for him was about to be responded to, then good-by to all else, good-by to the child’s future, good-by to everything but the prize which she had set herself to win. To win Luke Tarbot’s heart she would not care to what crime she stooped. Now she came a little nearer to him, and laid one of her thin but shapely hands on his arm.
“You are very tired, and you ought to rest,” she said.
“I am tired,” he replied, “dead tired, worn out. A night like this takes a lot out of a man. Clara, you look well.”
“I am glad you think so. I have put on no jewels because you dislike them. I take great pains with my dress these days.”
“It is useless, Clara,” he said, but he uttered the words sadly, and still there was that new puzzled expression in his eyes, and, notwithstanding his words, she did not think that her pains were quite thrown away.
Having finished his tea, Tarbot was refreshed. He stood up. He did not mind talking to Clara in the garish morning light.
“I shall be an old man before my time,” he said abruptly. “I am a disappointed, a bitterly disappointed man. I only live for one thing now. When that is over my career will be ended.”