第105章

To Thorpe the girl seemed more beautiful than ever.She exceeded even his retrospective dreams of her, for the dream had persistently retained something of the quality of idealism which made the vision unreal, while the woman before him had become human flesh and blood, adorable, to be desired.The red of this violent unexpected encounter rushed to her face, her bosom rose and fell in a fluttering catch for breath; but her eyes were steady and inquiring.

Then the butter pounced on Thorpe from behind with the intent to do great bodily harm.

"Morris!" commanded Hilda sharply, "what are you doing?"The man cut short his heroism in confusion.

"You may go," concluded Hilda.

Thorpe stood straight and unwinking by the straight portiere.After a moment he spoke.

"I have come to tell you that you were right and I was wrong,"said he steadily."You told me there could be nothing better than love.In the pride of my strength I told you this was not so.Iwas wrong."

He stood for another instant, looking directly at her, then turned sharply, and head erect walked from the room.

Before he had reached the outer door the girl was at his side.

"Why are you going?" she asked.

"I have nothing more to say."

"NOTHING?"

"Nothing at all."

She laughed happily to herself.

"But I have--much.Come back."

They returned to the little morning room, Thorpe's caulked boots gouging out the little triangular furrows in the hardwood floor.

Neither noticed that.Morris, the butler, emerged from his hiding and held up the hands of horror.

"What are you going to do now?" she catechised, facing him in the middle of the room.A long tendril of her beautiful corn-silk hair fell across her eyes; her red lips parted in a faint wistful smile; beneath the draperies of her loose gown the pure slender lines of her figure leaned toward him.

"I am going back," he replied patiently.

"I knew you would come," said she."I have been expecting you."She raised one hand to brush back the tendril of hair, but it was a mechanical gesture, one that did not stir even the surface consciousness of the strange half-smiling, half-wistful, starry gaze with which she watched his face.

"Oh, Harry," she breathed, with a sudden flash of insight, "you are a man born to be much misunderstood."He held himself rigid, but in his veins was creeping a molten fire, and the fire was beginning to glow dully in his eye.Her whole being called him.His heart leaped, his breath came fast, his eyes swam.

With almost hypnotic fascination the idea obsessed him--to kiss her lips, to press the soft body of the young girl, to tumble her hair down about her flower face.He had not come for this.He tried to steady himself, and by an effort that left him weak he succeeded.

Then a new flood of passion overcame him.In the later desire was nothing of the old humble adoration.It was elemental, real, almost a little savage.He wanted to seize her so fiercely as to hurt her.

Something caught his throat, filled his lungs, weakened his knees.

For a moment it seemed to him that he was going to faint.

And still she stood there before him, saying nothing, leaning slightly towards him, her red lips half parted, her eyes fixed almost wistfully on his face.

"Go away!" he whispered hoarsely at last.The voice was not his own."Go away! Go away!"Suddenly she swayed to him.

"Oh, Harry, Harry," she whispered, "must I TELL you? Don't you SEE?"The flood broke through him.He seized her hungrily.He crushed her to him until she gasped; he pressed his lips against hers until she all but cried out with the pain of it, he ran his great brown hands blindly through her hair until it came down about them both in a cloud of spun light.

"Tell me!" he whispered."Tell me!"

"Oh! Oh!" she cried."Please! What is it?""I do not believe it," he murmured savagely.

She drew herself from him with gentle dignity.

"I am not worthy to say it," she said soberly, "but I love you with all my heart and soul!"Then for the first and only time in his life Thorpe fell to weeping, while she, understanding, stood by and comforted him.

Chapter LVIII

The few moments of Thorpe's tears eased the emotional strain under which, perhaps unconsciously, he had been laboring for nearly a year past.The tenseness of his nerves relaxed.He was able to look on the things about him from a broader standpoint than that of the specialist, to front life with saving humor.The deep breath after striving could at last be taken.

In this new attitude there was nothing strenuous, nothing demanding haste; only a deep glow of content and happiness.He savored deliberately the joy of a luxurious couch, rich hangings, polished floor, subdued light, warmed atmosphere.He watched with soul-deep gratitude the soft girlish curves of Hilda's body, the poise of her flower head, the piquant, half-wistful, half-childish set of her red lips, the clear starlike glimmer of her dusky eyes.It was all near to him; his.

"Kiss me, dear," he said.

She swayed to him again, deliciously graceful, deliciously unselfconscious, trusting, adorable.Already in the little nothingnesses of manner, the trifles of mental and bodily attitude, she had assumed that faint trace of the maternal which to the observant tells so plainly that a woman has given herself to a man.

She leaned her cheek against her hand, and her hand against his shoulder.

"I have been reading a story lately," said she, "that has interested me very much.It was about a man who renounced all he held most dear to shield a friend.""Yes," said Thorpe.

"Then he renounced all his most valuable possessions because a poor common man needed the sacrifice.""Sounds like a medieval story," said he with unconscious humor.

"It happened recently," rejoined Hilda."I read it in the papers.""Well, he blazed a good trail," was Thorpe's sighing comment.

"Probably he had his chance.We don't all of us get that.Things go crooked and get tangled up, so we have to do the best we can.Idon't believe I'd have done it."

"Oh, you are delicious!" she cried.