out offending me. You
forestalled my wishes without the semblance of forestalling them, so
natural and inevitable was everything you did for me. I said, without
offending me. You were no dancing puppet. You made no fuss. Don't you
see? You did not seem to do things at all. Somehow they were always
there, just done, as a matter of course.

"The slavery was love's slavery. It was just my love for you that made
you swallow up all my days. You did not force yourself into my thoughts.
You crept in, always, and you were there always--how much, you will
never know.

"But as time went by, Aunt Mildred and Uncle grew to dislike you. They
grew afraid. What was to become of me? You were destroying my life. My
music? You know how my dream of it has dimmed away. That spring, when I
first met you--I was twenty, and I was about to start for Germany. I
was going to study hard. That was four years ago, and I am still here in
California.

"I had other lovers. You drove them away--No! no! I don't mean that. It
was I that drove them away. What did I care for lovers, for anything,
when you were near? But as I said, Aunt Mildred and Uncle grew afraid.
There has been talk--friends, busybodies, and all the rest. The time
went by. You did not speak. I could only wonder, wonder. I knew you
loved me. Much was said against you by Uncle at first, and then by Aunt
Mildred. They were father and mother to me, you know. I could not defend
you. Yet I was loyal to you. I refused to discuss you. I closed up.
There was half-estrangement in my home--Uncle Robert with a face like
an undertaker, and Aunt Mildred's heart breaking. But what could I do,
Chris? What could I do?"

The man, his head resting on her knee again, groaned, but made no other
reply.

"Aunt Mildred was mother to me, yet I went to her no more with my
confidences. My childhood's book was closed. It was a sweet book, Chris.
The tears come into my eyes sometimes when I think of it. But never
mind that. Great happiness has been mine as well. I am glad I can talk
frankly of my love for you. And the attaining of such frankness has been
very sweet. I do love you, Chris. I love you... I cannot tell you how.
You are everything to me, and more besides. You remember that Christmas
tree of the children?--when we played blindman's buff? and you caught
me by the arm so, with such a clutching of fingers that I cried out
with the hurt? I never told you, but the arm was badly bruised. And such
sweet