“Yes, I love you. That’s the devil of it,” David groaned from the shelter of his arm. “I love you so much I can’t think of anything else, not even of our danger.”
She crept closer to him, stroked timidly the clenched fist which hung at his side. “Then—why, David? I—I love you, too. You—must—have known. I love you with all my heart.” She stooped swiftly and laid her lips against his knuckles, which shone white as marble in the moonlight.
“Don’t!” he cried sharply. He lowered the arm that had sheltered his shamed, passionate eyes and looked at her humbly, his whole body drooping. “Don’t you see, darling—no, I mustn’t call you that!—don’t you see, Sally, that your—caring—only makes it worse? I wish I were the only one that has to suffer. But you’re so young—oh, God!” he cried in sudden anguish. “You’re so pitifully young! Sixteen! I ought to be horsewhipped!”
She laughed shakily. “I’m getting older every day, David. Is it such a crime to be young? You’re young, too, David—darling!” The word was dropped shyly, on a tremulous whisper.
“That’s it!” David cried wildly, fiercely under his breath. “We’re both young! I’m just half through college, and I haven’t a cent to my name except what I earned those two weeks on Carson’s farm. And I won’t have any money except barely enough to live on—I work my way through college—until I’ve finished school. And then it will be a long, hard struggle to get a start, unless my grandfather dies by then and leaves me his farm. He’s a miserly old man, darling. He thinks I’m a fool to study scientific farming, won’t give me a cent. I haven’t wanted it—till now.”
“And now, David?” she prompted softly, her fingers closing caressingly about the clenched hand which she must not kiss.
“I want to marry you, of course!” David flung the confession at her sternly. “I love you so much it’s torture to think of your going on to New York with the carnival. Oh, it’s all so hopeless! We’re in such a nasty jam, Sally, darling!” He groaned, snatched up her hands, kissed them hungrily, passionately, then dropped them as if the soft, sweet flesh stung his lips. “Don’t let me kiss you, Sally! For God’s sake! I can’t stand it! And it’s not fair to you to learn what love means, when—when we can’t go through with it.”
“But why can’t we, David?” she persisted, her love giving her amazing boldness. “I’ll never love anyone else. I’ll wait for you, for years and years. Until I’m eighteen and you’re twenty-three. You’re almost twenty-one, aren’t you, David?”
“Yes,” he acknowledged. “But I’m just a kid. Why, I’m a minor yet!” he reminded her with youth’s bitter shame. “And so are you. We couldn’t even get married legally. And we’re both—wanted—by the police. I can’t even figure out how I’m going to get back into A. & M. and finish my course. I couldn’t let you marry a man wanted for attempted murder, even if I could support you. Oh, I guess I could make a bare living for us, but I don’t want that! Not for you! I want you to have everything lovely in the world. You’ve had so little, so little! I want you to have silk and velvet to make you forget blue-and-white-checked gingham. I want—” he was going on passionately when Sally interrupted with her soft delicious little laugh.
“I want David,” she said simply.