But when he rose Marian rose too, and accompanied him out into the hall, and closed the door behind her. Ames did not seem to mind. When Marian excused herself his rather vacuous face was as radiant as before. What more natural than that a girl should find it fitting to say good-bye to an outgrown lover of her early youth?
Ames would not, perhaps, have been so calm about it had he witnessed the setting and details. For outside the door Marian paused only for an instant to look up at Stacey, then, with a gesture of her hand to him, hurried down the hall a few yards, stopped abruptly at a door that opened off from it, turned the knob gently, and, giving first one swift glance up and down the hall, pulled Stacey a little way into the room beyond.
He gazed around him quickly. There was no light save that which came from the hall. It was Marian’s bedroom.
He turned on her and seized her wrists, his heart beating violently. But his hostility rose, wave for wave, with his passion. What a trick to play on him! Deliberate! Deliberate!
But she stood there, close to him, perfectly still, looking up into his eyes. The corners of her mouth trembled a little.
They kissed, madly.
“Good-bye, Stacey,” she murmured faintly, when he had released her. “Don’t think I was—trying to hold you. I wasn’t. I only wanted to say good-bye—like this. I think you’re—right—and I won’t hate you—any more than I can help. Good-bye!” And, with another swift glance up and down, she drew him back into the hall.
But when she was already half way to the library door she turned and came back a step or two. Her eyes were wet, but her mouth had curved into a mischievous smile.
“Poor Ames!” she said, and was gone.
Stacey managed to leave the house without seeing either Mr. or Mrs. Latimer. He walked away swiftly. And when the confusion of his senses wore off he began to see into things a little more deeply than before. He saw his feeling toward Marian as it really was and as, he perceived, Marian had understood it—animal desire and love of beauty. Desire was a bond. It hurt to have it go. Stacey felt a painful emptiness, as though he had torn something violently from his heart. Yet he also felt a kind of exultation.