“Suppose I have done a wrong thing,” he said. “Suppose I have dragged you and Uncle Tom into trouble?”
“I am glad you came,” in a quick, soft voice. “I am glad you came.” And the slight, warm fingers closed round his.
He lifted them to his lips and kissed them over and over again. “Are you glad I came?” he murmured. “Oh, Sheba! Sheba!”
“Why do you say ‘Oh, Sheba’?” she asked.
“Because I love you so—and I am so young—and I don’t know what to do. You know I love you, don’t you?”
She leaned forward so that he saw her lovely gazelle eyes lifted and most innocently tender. “I want you to love me,” she said; “I could not bear you not to love me.”
He hesitated a second, and then suddenly pressed his glowing face upon her palm.
“But I don’t love you as Uncle Tom loves you, Sheba,” he said. “I love you—young as I am—I love you—differently.”
Her swaying nearer to him was a sweetly unconscious and involuntary thing. Their young eyes drowned themselves in each other.
“I want you,” she said, the note of a young ring-dove answering her mate murmuring in her voice, “I want you to love me—as you love me. I love your way of loving me.”