“Sweetheart,” he said, “I ain’t fit to kiss one of those soaked little mocc’sins of yours. I never worried much, before, ’bout such things;—but now—I kind of wish I’d done diff’rent in lots of things; so’s I could tell you I was reely worth your marryin’. But if you’ll help me, Dey, I’m goin’ to be everything you’d want. An’ one of these days I’ll make you proud of me.”
“I’m prouder of you now, dear,—and I’ve always been prouder—than I could be of any other man alive,” she insisted. “Oh, the miracle of it!”
Before he could stay her, or so much as guess her intent, she had slipped to her knees. Stooping to raise her, he saw her hands were clasped and her lips moving. Awed, he drew back a pace, and looked timidly upward into the Star Country. Then, shutting his eyes very tight he opened communication with Heaven for the first and last time in his life.
“Thanks!” he muttered under his breath.
A pause of mental hiatus,—a helpless groping for words in a wild universe of incoherent gratitude;—then once more a mumbled, shy “Thanks!”—and the prayer,—two words in all,—was ended.
It is possible that longer, more eloquent orisons than his have penetrated less far beyond the frontier of the stars and less close to the ear of the Hearer and Answerer.
Desirée had risen. Simply, half-shyly, like two little children, they kissed each other.
“Now you must go to sleep,” he ordered, picking up the mackintosh and wrapping it closely about her.
“To sleep!” she echoed. “After this? I don’t think I shall ever throw away happy hours again by sleeping through them. I couldn’t sleep now to save my life, even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to. Please let me do the bossing just a little longer, dear heart.”
He had flung another armful of wood upon the fire. Now, picking Desirée up as he might have lifted a baby, he returned to the stump seat. Holding her in his arms, close to his breast, he sat there, and gazed into the flames.