"Good God!" muttered Ralph. "My little girl, oh, my little girl!" Man-like, he loved her more than ever because she had denied him; man-like, he wanted her now as he had never wanted her before. Through the weeks that he had seen her every day, he had grown to feel his need of her, to hunger for the sweetness of her absolute dependence upon him. Yet, until now, he had not guessed how deeply he cared, nor guessed that such caring was possible.
He sat there for the better part of an hour, slowly regaining command of himself. Miss Evelina came through the hall and paused just outside the door, feeling intuitively that some one was in the house. She drew down her veil and went in.
"I thought you had gone," she said. "Did you wish to see me?"
"No," returned Ralph, wearily; "not especially."
She sat down opposite him silently. All her movements were quiet, for she had never been the noisy sort of woman. There was something soothing in the veiled presence.
"I hope I'm not intruding," ventured Ralph, at length. "I'll go, presently. I've just had a--well, a blow. That little saint upstairs has been taught that marriage is wicked."
"I know," returned Miss Evelina, instantly comprehending. "Mehitable has very strange ideas. I'm sorry," she added, in a tone she might have used in speaking to Anthony Dexter, years before.
Her sympathy touched the right chord. It was not obtrusive, it had no hint of pity; it was simply that one who had been hurt fully understood the hurt of another. Ralph felt a mysterious kinship.
"I've wanted for some time to ask you," he began awkwardly, "if there was not something I could do for you. The--the veil, you know--" He stopped, at a loss for further words.
"Yes?" Miss Evelina's voice was politely inquiring. She thought it odd for Anthony Dexter's son to be concerned about her veil. She wondered whether he meditated giving her a box of chiffon, as Piper Tom had done.
"Believe me," he said, impetuously, "I only want to help. I want to make it possible for you to take that--to take that thing off."
"It is not possible," returned Miss Evelina, after a painful interval. "I shall always wear my veil."
"You don't understand," explained Ralph. It seemed to him that he had spent the day telling women they did not understand. "I know, of course, that there was some dreadful accident, and that it happened a long time ago. Since then, wonderful advances have been made in surgery--there is a great deal possible now that was not dreamed of then. Of course I should not think of attempting it myself, but I would find the man who could do it, take you to him, and stand by you until it was over."