She did not look at him, for her eyelids were cast down, and her lashes were wet with the tears she could scarcely keep from shedding. Guy had never known much about girls of Maddy’s age, and there was something extremely fascinating in the artless simplicity of this half child, half woman, sitting there before him, and asking him so demurely to like her. She was very pretty, he thought, and with proper culture would make a beautiful woman. Then, as he remembered his avowed intention of urging the doctor to make her his wife some day, the idea flashed upon him that it would be very generous, very magnanimous in him to educate that young girl expressly for the doctor, and though he hardly seemed to wait at all ere replying to Maddy, he had in the brief interval formed a skeleton plan, and saw it in all its bearings and triumphal result.
“I am much obliged for your liking me,” he said, a very little mischievously. “You surely have not much reason so to do when you recall the incidents of our first interview. Maddy—Miss Clyde—I have come to the conclusion that I knew less than you did, and I beg your pardon for annoying you so terribly.”
Then briefly Guy explained to her how it all had happened, blaming himself far more than he did the doctor, who, he said, had repented bitterly. “Had you died, Miss Clyde, when you were so sick, I half believe he would have felt it his duty to die also. He likes you very much; more indeed than any patient I ever knew him to have,” and Guy’s eyes glanced curiously at Maddy to witness the effect his words might have upon her. But Maddy merely answered:
“Yes, I think he does like me, and I know I like him.”
Mentally chastising himself for trying to find in Maddy’s head an idea which evidently never was there, he began to speak of her proposition of leave, saying he should not suffer it, Jessie needed her and she must stay. She was not to mind the disagreeable things Mrs. Remington had said. She was tired and nervous, and so gave way to some very preposterous notions, which she had picked up somewhere. She would treat Maddy better hereafter, and she must stay. It was pleasanter for Jessie to have a companion so near her own age. Then, as he saw signs of yielding in Maddy’s face, he continued: