Her voice came wearily. “Because it would be selfish, when I don’t intend to marry you. But—but I wish I didn’t have to keep away from you.”
He leant forward and kissed her cool cheek. “Then don’t keep away from me.”
“You mustn’t kiss me, Peter. If only you wouldn’t kiss me directly we’re alone——. Why do you?”
Why did he? That she could ask such a question told him so much. She was like a beautiful statue; he could stir no life in her.
“Everybody’s done it,” he said simply; “everybody since the world began. You can’t help it when you love anybody.”
She withdrew her hand from her eyes and looked at him wonderingly. How quickly she could change from sad to gay! All of a sudden, from seeming listless and spent, she had become radiant and virile. Her face was tender and wore an amused expression. She stooped toward him and touched him. “Still a little boy! For the first time I feel older than you—so much older. What good times you and I could have if only we didn’t think ahead.”
He slipped his arm about her. “Dear little Cherry, you want to be loved, but you won’t believe that I’m your man. You won’t let yourself love me—that’s all that’s the matter. When I kiss you you turn your face away, as if you were only enduring me.”
She thrust her face forward with sweet demureness. “Try again.—I didn’t turn away then.—You’re so persistent, Peter. No, that’s’enough.”
He pushed out from the rushes. The sun was tumbling into bed, spreading his gold hair on the pillow and dragging his scarlet bed-clothes over him. The river was dull as tarnished silver, but it flared crimson where, in its windings, the west smote it.
“And to-morrow, Cherry?”