ing
something to his creatures. Who had the cheek? Why, it was Sylvia--in
her dressing-gown! He grew hot, then cold, with anger. He could not bear
anyone in that holy place! It was hateful to have his things even looked
at; and she--she seemed to be fingering them. He pulled the door open
with a jerk, and said: "What are you doing?" He was indeed so stirred by
righteous wrath that he hardly noticed the gasp she gave, and the
collapse of her figure against the wall. She ran past him, and vanished
without a word. He went up to his creatures and saw that she had placed
on the head of each one of them a little sprig of jessamine flower. Why!
It was idiotic! He could see nothing at first but the ludicrousness of
flowers on the heads of his beasts! Then the desperation of this attempt
to imagine something graceful, something that would give him pleasure
touched him; for he saw now that this was a birthday decoration. From
that it was only a second before he was horrified with himself. Poor
little Sylvia! What a brute he was! She had plucked all that jessamine,
hung out of her window and risked falling to get hold of it; and she had
woken up early and come down in her dressing-gown just to do something
that she thought he would like! Horrible--what he had done! Now, when
it was too late, he saw, only too clearly, her startled white face and
quivering lips, and the way she had shrunk against the wall. How pretty
she had looked in her dressing-gown with her hair all about her,
frightened like that! He would do anything now to make up to her for
having been such a perfect beast! The feeling, always a little with him,
that he must look after her--dating, no doubt, from days when he had
protected her from the bulls that were not there; and the feeling of her
being so sweet and decent to him always; and some other feeling too--all
these suddenly reached poignant climax. He simply must make it up to
her! He ran back into the house and stole upstairs. Outside her room he
listened with all his might, but could hear nothing; then tapped softly
with one nail, and, putting his mouth to the keyhole, whispered:
"Sylvia!" Again and again he whispered her name. He even tried the
handle, meaning to open the door an inch, but it was bolted. Once he
thought he heard a noise like sobbing, and this made him still more
wretched. At last he gave it up; she would not come, would not be
consoled. He deserved it, he knew, but