"Madeline!" he cried, suddenly leaning forward and catching her hands.
"I must tell you! You must know, and I must know!"
With the grasp of his fingers, the first physical touch of love, an
electric pang seemed to leap through the girl's body; and in the flash
were shown to her new heights and depths in herself, and a thousand dim
things in the future. She felt, in the man, the revelation of that
mystery by which the body's passion slips into passion of the soul--that
soul-love, which by its very nature can never know lassitude nor
revulsion. And what was actual in him, grew radiant with possibility in
herself.
She looked up to meet his eager face and his eyes like lamps. "No, no!"
she cried. "Don't tell me."
"But do you know without telling?"
"I must think."
"But surely you must have read it long ago."
"I only glanced at it. I never looked it in the face."
"Don't examine it too closely now, or I'm afraid you will find it a poor
thing," he said whimsically. "Take it on impulse, Madeline."
But she waved him away with her hand, turning her face to one side, and
leaned back in her cushions, while Ellery waited, hardly breathing.
There was a deep hush on the opal waters under the April morning sky,
and no sound but the far-off note of a wood-thrush.
"Madeline!" he cried at last. "Be merciful, and speak to me."
She gathered her self-possession and turned to face him with smiles and
dimples, and one swift look full in the face.
"Mr. Norris," she said airily, and then laughed as his face fell at the
title, "we are in the middle of a big sheet of water, and I do not want
you to upset the boat; we are visible from many miles of shore, and the
world and his wife are driving and motoring on this most beautiful of
days; but over on our right there is a lovely little beach, and a clump
of willows that have forced the season a bit. Perhaps, if we went there,
I might listen to what you have to say."
"Oh, Madeline, my Madeline," he said, "I can never tell you because the
words are not made that will hold it, and it will take a lifetime to
tell it all. But, if you are willing, we will make a beginning over
there by the dipping willows." He shot a stormy glance at her as he
caught the oars, and she met it bravely. "Please don't trail your
fingers in the water," he said. "You are delaying the progress of the
boat."
"Heaven forbid delay!" she cried in mock horror, and showered him with
the drops from her lifted hand.