“Is it only the organ?” said Kate, relieved. “Yes, is it not dreadful? but I thought you were angry with me. Oh, John, I don’t think I could bear it if I thought you were really angry with me.”
“My darling! I am a brute,” he said, and put the arm which he had drawn so suddenly away round her. He had but one--the other was enveloped in bandages and supported in a sling.
“Does it hurt?” said Kate, laying soft fingers full of healing upon it. “I do so want to hear how it all happened. Tell me how it was. They say the bank might all have been burned down if you had not seen it, and papa would have lost such heaps of money. John, dear, I think you will find papa easier to manage now.”
“Do you think so?” he said, with a faint smile; “but that is buying his favour, Kate.”
“Never mind how we get it, if we do get it,” cried Kate. “I am sure I would do anything to buy his favour--but I cannot go and save his papers and do such things for him. Or, John, was it for me?” she said, lowering her voice, and looking up in his face.
“No, I don’t think it was for you,” he answered, rather hoarsely; “and it was not for him. I did it because I could not help it, and to escape from myself.”
“To escape from yourself! Why did you want that?” she said, with an innocent little cry of astonishment. It was clear she was quite unaware of having done him any wrong.
“Kate, Kate,” he said, holding her close, “you did not mean it; but why did you take Fred Huntley into your confidence--why did you speak to him about you and me?”
She gave him a wondering look, and then the colour rose into her cheek. “John!” she said, in a tone of amazement, “what is this about Fred Huntley? Are you jealous of him--jealous of _him_? Oh, I hope I am not quite so foolish as that.”
Was that all she was going to say? No disclaimer of having given him her confidence, nothing about her part in the matter, only about his. Was he jealous? the question sank into John’s heart like a stone.
“I don’t know if I am jealous,” he said, with a falter in his voice, which went to Kate’s impressionable heart. “It must be worse to me than it is to you, or you would not ask me. To have said anything to anybody about us, Kate!”
“I see,” she said, holding away from him a little; “I see,”--and was silent for two seconds at least, which felt like two hours to them both. And the man went on playing “La Donna é Mobile,”--and Parsons, very red in the face, kept shaking her head at him, but did not attempt to leave her post. Then Kate turned and lifted her pretty eyes, full of tears, to her lover’s face, and spoke in his very ear. “John, it was very silly of me, and thoughtless, and nasty, I see. But I have had nobody to tell me such things. I have never had a mother like you; I say whatever comes into my head. John! I am so sorry----”