"Not that!" she pleaded. "Not all that. I'm not what you think, I'm only what you can make me. I'm weak and need it. I want to be carried ... along and upward by it!"
Chin drawn in, he looked down into her face as she lay in his arms, her breath quick and fast and warm on his cheek. He could feel his limbs vibrate as his pulse leaped and his whole body trembled as he read the look in her eyes, revealed by the moonlight.
Up on the hills a little owl hooted and again the coyote yapped. A vagrant night wind touched the trees above them and the leaves whispered sleepily, as if roused by a pleasant dream. The murmur of the creek sounded almost as a blessing. None of these they heard. They were lost in a vague, limitless world, alone, swayed by the most powerful, the most beautiful forces in life.
"You lied because you love me," he whispered.
And at that she stirred and her breath slipped out in a long sob. He lowered his face to hers as scalding tears brimmed from her eyes. He felt them on his cheek, mingled with her breath and he felt her arms tighten about his neck, her body draw closer to his.
"It wasn't any chance!" he whispered fiercely. "It wasn't any chance, and I've been holdin' back, fighting it off, denying it to myself for weeks ... afraid to risk it, afraid to let it come out ... afraid of what is so!"
"Isn't it a chance?" she asked almost in a gasp. "Isn't it? Are you sure, Tom?"
"As sure as I am that the moon is up there, Jane."
He lowered his lips to hers and for a long kiss they clung.
"But you don't know—you don't know!" she cried, suddenly struggling to be free. "You don't know me," pressing her palms against his chest as he held her. "It's big, it's fine ... the biggest, the finest thing that has ever come into my life.