Then, his self-restraint failing him, he slipped an arm about her and held her tightly to him. "Carrie," he said harshly, "it is getting too hard for me. Do you know that now and then something almost drives me into taking you into my arms and crushing you into submission? I could do it now—the touch of you almost maddens me. This can't go on. I have felt lately that you were growing kinder and shrank from me less. After all, I am a man and nothing more. How long do you mean to keep me waiting?"
Carrie laughed softly, with a little catch of her breath. "Bend your head a little, Charley," she said, "I have something to tell you."
As he did her bidding, she, stretching up a soft, warm arm round his neck, drew his face down to hers. His hand closed convulsively on her waist.
"Charley," she said again, "it needn't go on any longer than you wish. I don't want it to. I only want you to love me now."
The man laughed almost fiercely in his exultation. For a space she lay crushed and breathless beneath his engirdling arm, with his kisses hot upon her lips. When at last his grasp relaxed, her head, with the big white hat all crushed and crumpled, was still upon his breast. Her cheeks were burning, and her blood ran riot, for she was one who did nothing by half, as she clung to him in an ecstasy of complete and irrevocable surrender. The man broke out into a flood of disjointed, half-coherent, unrestrained words.
"It was worth while waiting—even if I had waited years—though now and then you almost drove me mad," he said. "Your daintiness, your pride, the clean, hard grit that was in you, made me want to take you in my arms and break you and make you yield. Still, I knew, somehow, that was not the way with you, and I held myself in. It was hard—oh, it was hard. The beauty of you, your freshness, your beautiful little hands, even the coldness in your face, set me on fire at times. They were mine, you belonged to me, and yet I would claim nothing that went with your dislike. I wanted you to give them all to me."
Carrie laughed, though there was a little break in her voice. "They are yours, and so am I. Only you must think them precious—and never let me go."
Then she stretched her arm up and slipped it round his neck again. "Charley, at the very first, what was it made you want to marry me?"
"Well," said Leland, with an air of reflection, "haven't you hair as softly dusky as the sky up there, and eyes so deep and clear that one can see the wholesome thoughts down in the depths of them? Haven't you hands and arms that look like alabaster, until one feels the gracious warmth beneath?"
"And a vixenish temper! If I ever show it to you, you must shake me, and shake me hard. There was a time when you did it, and left a blue mark on my shoulder; but I deserved it, and now I wouldn't mind. I would sooner have you shake me every day than never think of me. Still, you haven't told me what I asked you yet."