Leaning over her, Roger's hand closed gently on the cool flesh. He drew her slowly round and they looked silently at each other.
"I think I have always loved you," Roger said at last, like a child, whispering a confession strange to itself, born of the tender knowing in its mother's eyes. He did not understand this thing himself, revealed with such sudden swift quietness, but the earth understood, and the fog, and that old, old race asleep. As if the mist had parted and revealed it to him, so this love was revealed, something concrete in that wind-filled emptiness, something definite and shapeable, a thing he could cup in both hands and offer to Anne.
It had come. Belle had been right and so utterly wrong; Belle, with her cheap experience, her world-eaten deductions from sickness and disease. Roger Barton loved her. The wonder of it held Anne to the exclusion of her own feeling.
Roger dropped her hand and Anne looked up quickly.
"I'm pretty clumsy, Miss Mitchell, but——" the pounding in his throat choked him. A piercing shaft of joy shot through her.
"You're—you're not clumsy at all. And I—I would like to marry you very much."
Sudden awkwardness descended upon them. They looked shyly at each other, Anne waiting for Roger to draw her close and kiss her, Roger a little frightened.
Wasn't he going to kiss her? Chill crept over Anne. And then he was drawing her to him. The surface of her body broke into tiny pricks of excitement, triumph, awe. She could feel his breath on her face, see the inevitable approach of his lips. Now he was too near to see. His lips were on hers. Suddenly, driven by the need to reach through to something beyond them both, Anne returned their pressure. Roger felt their clinging with faint surprise, deep tenderness and awe.
CHAPTER FIVE
The following morning Anne and Roger went back to town. They strolled up Market Street to Third and Kearney and there Anne stopped.