"Then you care, after all!"
There was something boyish in his triumph, in the very gesture with which
he held out his arms, like a child who has escaped a whipping. He stood up
and, catching her hands, drew her to her feet. "You love me, dear."
"I'm afraid I do, Max."
"Then I'm yours, and only yours, if you want me," he said, and took her in
his arms.
He was riotously happy, must hold her off for the joy of drawing her to him
again, must pull off her gloves and kiss her soft bare palms.
"I love you, love you!" he cried, and bent down to bury his face in the
warm hollow of her neck.
Sidney glowed under his caresses--was rather startled at his passion, a
little ashamed.
"Tell me you love me a little bit. Say it."
"I love you," said Sidney, and flushed scarlet.
But even in his arms, with the warm sunlight on his radiant face, with his
lips to her ear, whispering the divine absurdities of passion, in the back
of her obstinate little head was the thought that, while she had given him
her first embrace, he had held other women in his arms. It made her
passive, prevented her complete surrender.
And after a time he resented it. "You are only letting me love you," he
complained. "I don't believe you care, after all."
He freed her, took a step back from her.
"I am afraid I am jealous," she said simply. "I keep thinking of--of
Carlotta."
"Will it help any if I swear that that is off absolutely?"
"Don't be absurd. It is enough to have you say so."
But he insisted on swearing, standing with one hand upraised, his eyes on
her. The Sunday landscape was very still, save for the hum of busy insect
life. A mile or so away, at the foot of two hills, lay a white farmhouse
with its barn and outbuildings. In a small room in the barn a woman sat;
and because it was Sunday, and she could not sew, she read her Bible.
"--and that after this there will be only one woman for me," finished Max,
and dropped his hand. He bent over and kissed Sidney on the lips.
At the white farmhouse, a little man stood in the doorway and surveyed the
road with eyes shaded by a shirt-sleeved arm. Behind him, in a darkened
room, a barkeeper was wiping the bar with a clean cloth.