“You won’t,” he made himself say; “there isn’t a drop of craven blood in you, Vinnie—dear.”
Again the brooding silence fell, and, as before, it was the young woman who broke it.
“If we are going to be stifled in a little while—as I suppose we are—it doesn’t matter much what we say to each other, does it, David? I mean that we needn’t consider any future, so far as we usually count futures in a conventional way?”
“No; we are only a man and a woman, naked before the God who created us, Vinnie—and we are about to die.”
“Then—David, dear—I love you!”
“I know it,” he returned gently; “I have known it for a night and a day,” and he took her in his arms and kissed her almost solemnly. “You are giving your life because you tried to save mine.”
She made no effort to free herself. She was weary and weak to the point of collapse, and the supporting arms were grateful and comforting.
“I had ambitions,” she murmured; “such splendid ambitions! Ever since I have been old enough to understand, I have known how dis—dishonestly much of the money was made in the contracting, and it has hurt me—oh, you don’t know how it has hurt me! Father doesn’t see; he simply can’t see. And then my ambition came. A year ago I saw how father felt toward you; first because you were Adam Vallory’s son, and afterward because you were yourself—just such a son as he would have given worlds to have for his own. I whispered to myself then that I would make you love me and marry me; and then there would be two of us to fight for honesty and fair-dealing and the—the righteousness that cares for something more than merely keeping clear of the law. You would have helped me, wouldn’t you, David?”
He bent and kissed the pulse in the throbbing temple.
“You could have made of me anything that you wished, dear. You know that.”