"Take it off," he suggested, so quietly that he quite deceived her, and she uttered a little cry of shocked appeal.
"Angela!" and his hand fell heavy on her shoulder, "listen to me just once. When Ted was alive I could bear to hear you mention his name, but now that he is dead I--can't. He belongs to me now, and I forbid it."
"Keith!" She gasped again, but this time in sheer fright. "And the money--the shares you--"
He laughed mirthlessly, and took his hand from her shoulder. His moment of feeling gave place to amused appreciation of the real woman poor Ted had never known.
"Who says women are inconsistent?" he queried. "You are a living illustration of the contrary. I have never seen you vary a hair's-breadth from my first instinctive feeling concerning you, you pretty baby kitten! You needn't look so frightened; you will get whatever money is in reach. Now, don't go to whimpering! Get on your bonnet, if Doña Maria may think it allowable for me to take you both for a carriage drive. I promised Ted to do things for you, and I must make a beginning."
"Is that the only reason?" she began, with righteous indignation.
"That is the only reason, my lady," he returned. "Are you coming?"
A little later they were rolling along Spring Street, past the plaza, and many heads turned to look at the golden-haired girlish little figure in mourning, drooping beside Doña Maria, whose rigid, unsmiling, dark features were the best possible foil. Keith Bryton, sitting opposite, noticed the admiration she aroused. The caballeros who had swept sombreros to the ground at the passage of the carriage in which Raquel and the bishop were riding did so as a matter of reverence to a devotee; but the rule of the woman whom Keith had called a baby kitten would always be one of childish appeal, personal to a degree.
Looking at her cynically, he tried to fancy her twenty years ahead,--the mother of a grown daughter,--but failed. The daughter would have to be guardian; the mother would always need one. She was watching him furtively to see the effect this open admiration might have upon him. He was the one man of them all who had ever dared treat her so carelessly. His attitude had piqued her to the point where she had a brief tigerish desire to rend his heart--his affections--if he had any! And Teddy was the weapon.