It was the girl who opened to his knock. Startled, clasping her hands,
she looked strange to Keith in her black skirt and blouse of some soft
velvety stuff the colour of faded roses. Her round, rather long throat
was bare; and Keith noticed fretfully that she wore gold earrings. Her
eyes, so pitch dark against her white face, and the short fair hair,
which curled into her neck, seemed both to search and to plead.
"My brother?"
"He is not in, sir, yet."
"Do you know where he is?"
"No."
"He is living with you here now?"
"Yes."
"Are you still as fond of him as ever, then?"
With a movement, as though she despaired of words, she clasped her hands
over her heart. And he said:
"I see."
He had the same strange feeling as on his first visit to her, and when
through the chink in the curtains he had watched her kneeling--of pity
mingled with some faint sexual emotion. And crossing to the fire he
asked:
"May I wait for him?"
"Oh! Please! Will you sit down?"
But Keith shook his head. And with a catch in her breath, she said:
"You will not take him from me. I should die."
He turned round on her sharply.
"I don't want him taken from you.
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