“When you called me Rachel that day.”
“I nearly told you that time,” he sighed.
“You might have, John,” said she, a bit accusingly; “you didn’t owe him anything then––that was before he came.”
“I respected you too much to take advantage of your coming to me that way for your lessons day by day, Joan. I had to fight to keep it back.”
“I tried to pull it out of you,” Joan said, as serious as a penitent, although there was a smile breaking on her lips as she turned her face away.
“I’d never want to do anything, or say anything, that would lower your respect for me one little degree, Joan,” 168 he said, still clinging to her hand as though he feared he had not quite won her, and must hold her fast by his side for the final word.
“I know you wouldn’t, John,” said she, her voice shaking a little, and low beneath her breath.
“I wouldn’t want to––to––go as far as Jacob went that first time he saw Rachel,” said he in desperation, his grip tightening on her fingers, sweat bursting on his brow. “I wouldn’t want to––I’d want to, all right, but I wouldn’t even––even–––”
Joan looked up at him with calm, placid eyes, with pale cheeks, with yearning lips, a flutter in her heart that made her weak. She nodded, anxious to help him to his climax, but not bold, not bolder than himself, indeed, and he was shaking like a sick man in the sun.
“Unless I could make it holy, unless you could understand it so, I wouldn’t even––I wouldn’t so much as–––” He took her face between his hands, and bent over her, and a glad little sob trembled between Joan’s lips as she rested her hands on his shoulders for the benediction of his kiss.