She paused, pursed her lips, studied the book with eyes that seemed to grow misty, then looked up at Humphrey.
He--tall, angular, very sober--met her gaze; then his swarthy face wrinkled up about the eyes and he hurriedly drew his cob pipe from his pocket and began filling it.
Henry stared at the rug; traced out the pattern with his stick. He couldn't answer this last point, because he had never heard of Mathilde Wesendonck. And as he was supposed to be 'musical' it seemed best to keep quiet.
He made an excuse of some sort and went out for a walk. Down by the lake he thought of several strong arguments. Mildred was wrong. She had to be wrong. For he had cut girls out.
It was like Mildred to speak out in that curiously direct way. She was fond of Henry. And she had divined, out of her various, probably rather vivid contacts with life, certain half-truths that were not accepted in Sunbury.
I think she saw Henry pretty clearly, saw that he was driven by an emotional dynamo that was to bring him suffering and success both.... Mildred, of course, never really belonged in a small town.
It was at the close of the following afternoon that Henry came in and found Humphrey's long figure stretched out on the window-seat--he was smoking, of course--of all things, blowing endless rings up at the curtains Mildred had made and hung for him. His dark skin looked gray. There were deep lines in his face. He couldn't speak at first. But he stared at Henry.
That young man put away hat and stick, had his coat off, and was rolling back his shirt sleeves for a wash, humming the refrain of _Kentucky Babe_. Then, through a slow moment, the queer silence about him, Humphrey's attitude--that fact, for that matter, that Hump was here, at all; he was a great hand to work until six or after at the _Voice_ office--these things worked in on him like a premonition. The little song died out. He went on, a few steps, toward the bathroom, then came to a stop, turned toward the silent figure on the window-seat, came slowly over.
Now he saw his friend clearly. As he sank on the arm of a chair--it was where he had sat the evening before--he caught his breath.
'Wha--what is it?' he asked. His voice was suddenly husky. His mind went blank. There was sensation among the roots of his hair. 'What's the matter, Hump?'