“Still it is something to be considered,” he said heavily and judicially. His hand closed over hers and gripped it tightly. “If you were in my place wouldn’t you hesitate about inviting her to—to become a widow?”
“Oh, I love you, Oliver, when your voice sounds as if it had a laugh in it,” she whispered.
“In a month I will be thirty,” he went on, his heart as light as air. “I might ask her to give me a thirty day option, or something like that.”
“You goose!”
He pressed her arm to his side, and was serious when he spoke again, after a moment’s pause.
“I have never asked a girl to marry me, Jane. Never in all my life. Do you know why?”
She buried her face against his shoulder. A vast, overwhelming thrill raced through him. Her warm, supple body suddenly and mysteriously became that of another woman—a strange woman so unlike Jane that his senses swam with wonder. What magic was this? This was not Jane—not the Jane he had known forever! Something incredibly feminine, sensuous, intoxicating—His arms went about her and drew her close.
“God! Is—is this you, Jane?” he whispered. “Is it really you?”
She lifted her head. A little sob of joy broke on her lips. Gazing up into his eyes, bright even in the darkness, she murmured a bewildered question.
“Yes—you are some other girl,” he replied, dazed by ecstasy. “You can’t be Jane Sage. You don’t feel like Jane Sage. You don’t—”