CHAPTER XXVI
The moment that she had spoken he flung a protective arm about her—his left arm; his right arm was free, and he had turned his face away from her with a jerk and had alert eyes fixed upon the door. His man’s instinct had forced him into the protective attitude of the primeval man when threatened by a sudden danger of another man or another animal. He had not in that second realized the details of the danger that her words had disclosed; his action was automatic—the inherited instinct of the cave-dweller ancestor.
As such its force was felt in every nerve by the woman who was clinging to him.
The silence was broken by the dwindling laughter of the dissolving crowds outside the house, where primeval man was carrying on his courting of primeval woman after the manner of their tribe, among the shrubberies.
“I knew that you would hold me from him,” said Priscilla. “I knew that I need not fear anything with you near me, my man, my man!”
At her words the man, for the first time, was startled. He turned his face toward her, drawing a long breath, and looked into her eyes.
In another moment he gave a laugh.
“Yes,” she said, smiling and nodding her head, interpreting his laugh by the instinct of the forest. “Yes, let anyone try it.”
There was a long interval before his hand fell away from her waist. He felt with that hand for the back of the chair out of which she had risen on his entering the room—his eyes were still upon her face; they were still upon it when his groping had found the chair, and he sat down slowly and cautiously.