And again, “I don’t know any man in the world with whom I’d trust myself to do what we’re doing. Oh, I don’t want to hurt you, Peter. If ever I should hurt you, you’ll remember?”
He couldn’t speak—didn’t want to speak. He and she were awake and together, while all the world slept—that was sufficient.
How still it was! He could hear the soft intake of her breath and the rustle of her dress. “So this is love!” he kept saying to himself. It wasn’t at all what he had expected. It wasn’t a wild rush of words and an eager clutching of hands. It wasn’t an extravagance of actions and language. It was just tenderness. He unbent her fingers, marveling at their frailness. He pressed the palm of her hand against his mouth. He felt like a little child as he sat beside this silent girl.
Cherry lifted herself on the cushions. She gave him both her hands.
“What is it?”
She seemed afraid. When she spoke, her voice trembled. “When two people are married, is it always one who allows and one who loves? You don’t know; you can’t tell me. If both don’t love it must be terrible. I couldn’t bear only to give everything; and only to take everything, that would be worse. Oh, Peter, I have to tell you. It was like that with my mother. She couldn’t give everything to my father, and then—she found someone else. My father worshiped her—just as you’d worship me, Peter; when he knew that she was going away from him he—he kept her.” She covered her face. “He was hanged for it. And that’s why the Faun Man——. He was his friend. Oh, I’m afraid of myself; I almost wish we’d never met.”
He held her to him; she was shaken with sobbing. Suddenly he recalled how he had first seen her, rushing out of the Happy Cottage, with her brown-black hair tumbled about her white face and her gray eyes wide with tragedy. She was so wilful, and she so needed protection.
“Cherry, Cherry. Don’t be frightened. Don’t cry, dear. I love you. Nothing like that could ever happen to us.”
She stared at him. “Nothing like that could ever happen! I expect they said that.”
They! They! And was it they who had called her Cherry, because her lips were red?