XVI
He did. She listened, sometimes intently interested, absorbed, sometimesleaning back dreamily, her eyes partly veiled under silken lashes, hermouth curved with the vaguest of smiles.
He spoke as a man who awakes with a start--not very clearly at first,then with feverish coherence, at times with recklessness almosteloquent. Still only half awakened himself, still scarcely convinced,scarcely credulous that this miracle of an hour had been wrought in him,here under the sky and setting sun and new-born leaves, he spoke notonly to her but of her to himself, formulating in words the rhythm hispulses were beating, interpreting this surging tide which thundered inhis heart, clamoring out the fact--the fact--the fact that heloved!--that love was on him like the grip of Fate--on him so suddenly,so surely, so inexorably, that, stricken as he was, the clutch onlyamazed and numbed him.
He spoke, striving to teach himself that the incredible was credible,the impossible possible--that it was done! done! done! and that he loveda woman in an hour because, in an hour, he had read her innocence as onereads through crystal, and his eyes were opened for the first time uponloveliness unspoiled, sweetness untainted, truth uncompromised.
"Do you know," she said, "that, as you speak, you make me care for youso much more than I supposed a girl could care for a man?"
"Can you love me?"
"Oh, I do already! I don't mean mere love. It is something--_something_that I never knew about before. _Every_thing about you is so--so exactlywhat I care for--your voice, your head, the way you think, the way youlook at me. I never thought of men as I am thinking about you.... I wantyou to belong to me--all alone.... I want to see how you look when youare angry, or worried, or tired. I want you to think of me when you areperplexed and unhappy and ill. Will you? You _must_! There is nobodyelse, is there? If you do truly love me?"
"Nobody but you."
"That is what I desire.... I want to live with you--I promise I won'ttalk about art--even _your_ art, which I might learn to care for. All Iwant is to really live and have your troubles to meet and overcome thembecause I will not permit anything to harm you.... I will love youenough for that.... I--do you love other women?"
"Good God, no!"
"And you shall not!" She leaned closer, looking him through and through."I _will_ be what you love! I will be what you desire most in all theworld. I _will_ be to you everything you wish, in every way, always,ever, and forever and ever.... Will you marry me?"
"Will _you_?"
"Yes."
She suddenly stripped off her glove, wrenched a ring set with brilliantsfrom the third finger of her left hand, and, rising, threw it, straightas a young boy throws, far out into deepening twilight. It was the endof Mr. Frawley; he, too, had not only become a by-product but a good-byproduct. Yet his modest demands had merely required a tear a year!Perhaps he had not asked enough. Love pardons the selfish.
She was laughing, a trifle excited, as she turned to face him where hehad risen. But, at the touch of his hand on hers, the laughter died at abreath, and she stood, her limp hand clasped in his, silent,expressionless, save for the tremor of her mouth.
"I--I must go," she said, shrinking from him.
He did not understand, thrilled as he was by the contact, but he let hersoft hand fall away from his.
Then with a half sob she caught her own fingers to her lips and kissedthem where the pressure of his hand burned her white flesh--kissed them,looking at him.
"You--you find a child--you leave a woman," she said unsteadily. "Do youunderstand how I love you--for that?"
He caught her in his arms.
"No--not yet--not my mouth!" she pleaded, holding him back; "I love youtoo much--already _too_ much. Wait! Oh, _will_ you wait?... And let mewait--_make_ me wait?... I--I begin to understand some things I did notknow an hour ago."
In the dusk he could scarcely see her as she swayed, yielding, her armstightening about his neck in the first kiss she had ever given orforgiven in all her life.
And through the swimming tumult of their senses the thrush's song ranglike a cry. The moon had risen.