SHE FLUNG HERSELF FACE DOWNWARD ON THE SOFA AND SOBBED.
"Don't touch me!" she repeated without raising her head.
"I'm not going to," he answered.
He began to walk up and down the room—up and down the room she could hear him going. Once he went to the mantelpiece, and leaning his elbows on the shelf he put his hands over his ears. And then without warning he came and sat down beside her on the sofa and gathered her into his arms like a child.
"No, no!" she said with what little was left of her voice.
"Oh, what difference does it make?" he answered.
She made no reply. She seemed hardly aware that he had drawn her head and shoulders across his upright body so that her face was hidden in the crook of his arm. He put his hand on her heaving shoulder, looking down at the disordered knot of her black hair. A few minutes before he would have said that he could not have touched her hand without setting fire to his strong desire for her. And here she was, softly in his arms, and his only emotion was a tenderness so comprehensive that all desires beyond that moment were swallowed up in it.
He almost smiled to remember the futility of the explanation he had been attempting. This was the real explanation between them. How little difference words made, he thought, and yet how we all cling to them! He took his free hand from her shoulder, and like a careful nurse he slid back a hair-pin, just poised to fall from the crisp mass of her hair.
Gradually her sobs stopped, she gave a long deep breath, and presently he saw she had fallen asleep.
There never was an hour in O'Bannon's life that he set beside that hour. He sat like a man in a trance, and yet acutely aware of everything about him; of the logs in the fire that, burning through, fell apart like a blazing drawbridge across the andirons; of an occasional footstep in the street; and finally of the inevitable approach of the rattling milk wagon, of its stopping at the door, of the wire trays, of the raising of the Thorne basement window and the slow thump of the delivery of the allotted number of bottles.
After a long time a little frightened face stared at him round the door. Turning his head slowly, he saw Miss Bennett, her gray hair brushed straight back from her face and her eyes large and staring.
"Is she dead?" she whispered.
O'Bannon shook his head, and hardly making a sound, his lips formed the words, "Go away."
Miss Bennett really couldn't do that.
"It's almost five o'clock," she said reproachfully.
He nodded.
"Go away," he said.
In her bright satin dressing gown she sat down, but he could see that she was nervous and uncertain. He summoned all the powers of will that he possessed; he fixed his eyes on her, compelling her to look at him; and when he felt he had gathered her in he raised his right hand and gently but decisively pointed to the door. She got up and went out.
The fire had burned itself completely out now, and the cold of the hours before dawn began to penetrate the room. O'Bannon began to apprehend the fact that this night must some time end—that Lydia must presently wake up. He dreaded the moment there would be more anger, more repudiation of the obvious bond between them, more torture and separation. He shivered, and leaning forward he softly drew her cloak from a neighboring chair and laid it over her, tucking it in about her shoulders. He was afraid the movement might have waked her, but she seemed to sleep on.
Again the minutes began to slip enchantedly away, and then far away in the house, in some remote upper story, he heard a footstep. Housemaids. Inwardly be called down the curse of heaven upon them. He glanced down at Lydia, and suddenly knew—how he knew it he could not say—that she had heard it too; that she had been awake a long time, since he put the cloak over her—perhaps since Miss Bennett had left the room.
Awake and content! His heart began to beat loudly, violently.
"Lydia," he said.
She did not move or answer, only he felt that her head pressed more closely into the hollow of his arm.