“No, I don’t suppose they do, Joe,” she sighed.
She had calmed down while he talked. Now she wiped her eyes on her veil, while the last convulsions of sobbing shook her now and then, like the withdrawing rumble of thunder after a storm.
“I’ll put out the light, Ollie,” said he. “You go on to bed.”
“Oh, Joe, Joe!” said she in a little pleading, meaningless way; a little way of reproach and softness.
She lifted her tear-bright eyes, with the reflection of her subsiding passion in them, and looked yearningly into his. Ollie suddenly found herself feeling small and young, penitent and frail, in the presence of this quickly developed man. His strength seemed to rise above her, and spread round her, 109 and warm her in its protecting folds. There was comfort in him, and promise.
The wife of the dead viking could turn to the living victor with a smile. It is a comforting faculty that has come down from the first mother to the last daughter; it is as ineradicable in the sex as the instinct which cherishes fire. Ollie was primitive in her passions and pains. If she could not have Morgan, perhaps she could yet find a comforter in Joe. She put her free hand on his shoulder and looked up into his face again. Tears were on her lashes, her lips were loose and trembling.
“If you’d be good to me, Joe; if you’d only be good and kind, I could stay,” she said.
Joe was moved to tenderness by her ingenuous sounding plea. He put his hand on her shoulder in a comforting way. She was very near him then, and her small hand, so lately cold and tear-damp, was warm within his. She threw her head back in expectant attitude; her yearning eyes seemed to be dragging him to her lips.
“I will be good to you, Ollie; just as good and kind as I know how to be,” he promised.
She swayed a little nearer; her warm, soft body pressed against him, her bright young eyes still striving to draw him down to her lips.