“I only told her what she already knew,” he said.
“She knew?”
He spoke in a lower voice––a voice gentle and trembling.
“She said you came in last night after she had gone asleep––”
Sally covered her face with her hands.
“Oh,” she gasped, “she––she told you that?”
He reached up and gently removed her hands. He held them tight in both of his.
“It was good of you to think of me like that. It was like you,” he said.
All the while he was drawing her nearer and nearer to him. She resisted. At least she thought she was resisting, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. Nearer his eyes came to hers; nearer his lips came to hers. She gave a quick gasp as one before sudden danger. Then she felt his warm lips against hers and swayed slightly. But his arms were about her. They were strong about her, so that, while she felt as though hanging dizzily over a precipice, she at the same moment never felt safer 303 in her life. With his lips against her lips, she closed her eyes until, to keep from losing herself completely, she broke free. Her cheeks scarlet, her breath coming short, her eyes like stars, she stared at him a moment, and then like a startled fawn turned and ran for the house. He followed, but her feet were tipped with wings. He did not catch her until she had burst into the kitchen, where in some fear Mrs. Halliday gathered her into her arms.
“She hasn’t answered me even yet,” he explained to Mrs. Halliday.