He rested a moment as he was, then straightened up impatiently as
though ashamed.
"Death is death," he said in matter-of-fact tones.
Athalie slowly shook her head: "There is no death."
He nodded almost gratefully: "I know what you mean. I dare say you are
right.... Well--I think I'll go back to Yhdunez."
"Not this evening?" she protested, smilingly.
He smiled, too: "No, not this evening, Miss Greensleeve. I shall never
care to go anywhere again--"... His face altered.... "Unless you care
to go--with me."
What he had said she would have taken gaily, lightly, had not the
gravity of his face forbidden it. She saw the lean muscles tighten
along his clean-cut cheek, saw the keen eyes grow wistful, then steady
themselves for her answer.
She could not misunderstand him; she disdained to, honouring the
simplicity and truth of this man to whom she was so truly devoted.
Her abandoned sewing lay on her lap. Hafiz slept with one velvet paw
entangled in her thread. She looked down, absently freeing thread and
fabric, and remained so for a moment, thinking. After a while she
looked up, a trifle pale: "Thank you, Captain Dane," she said in a low voice.
He waited.
"I--am afraid that I am--in love--already--with another man."
He bent his head, quietly; there was no pleading, no asking for a
chance, no whining of any species to which the monarch man is so
constitutionally predisposed when soft, young lips pronounce the death
warrant of his sentimental hopes.
All he said was: "It need not alter anything between us--what I have
asked of you."
"It only makes me care the more for our friendship, Captain Dane."
He nodded, studying the pattern in the Shirvan rug under his feet. A
procession of symbols representing scorpions and tarantulas
embellished one of the rug's many border stripes. His grave eyes
followed the procession entirely around the five-by-three bit of
weaving. Then he rose, bent over her, took her slim hand in silence,
saluted it, and asking if he might call again very soon, went out
about his business, whatever it was. Probably the most important
business he had on hand just then was to get over his love for Athalie
Greensleeve.
For a long while Athalie sat there beside Hafiz considering the world
and what it was threatening to do to her; considering man and what he
had offered and what he had not offered to do to her.
Distressed because of the pain she had inflicted on Captain Dane, yet
proud of the honour done her, she sat thinking, sometimes of Clive,
sometimes of Mr. Wahlbaum, sometimes of Doris and Catharine, and of
her brother who had gone out to the coast years ago, and from whom she
had never heard.