In his anxiety to follow each twist and turn of her reasoning he had crept nearer, and was now on his knees, having imprisoned her hands in his, and peering intently into her face. In that dim light her eyes shone like faintly luminous twin stars, and he laughed joyously when, to his thinking, he had solved the doubt that was troubling her.
“If it will help any that all the world should know that I, the aforesaid John Darien Power, have been, and am, and will ever remain frantically in love with a lady heretofore described as Nancy Willard, I shall nail a signed statement to that effect on the Casino notice-board tomorrow morning,” he vowed.
She gently released her hands, placed them lovingly on his cheeks, and drew him close, so that he could not choose but yield to any demand she might make.
“Derry,” she said, kissing him with that soothing air of maternity which is a woman’s highest endowment, “though I am going to say something dreadfully forward and bold, I shall risk all lest I lose you, and, if that happens, my poor heart will break and be at rest forever. Even now you do not see whither I am leading you. You never would see unless I spoke plainly. My love for you may be fierce and terrible; but I am only a weak woman, a woman just emerged from girlhood, and I want to be saved from myself. If, for your dear sake, I am to cut adrift from the past, I cannot be left alone. By your side I can face the storm, but I shudder at the thought of protests, appeals, influences perhaps more potent than I imagine in my present new-found mood of hatred of the wrong which has been done me. Derry, why, do you think, have I asked you to leave Newport early tomorrow?”
Stirred by a common impulse, they both stood upright. All at once she seemed to be unable to bear his burning gaze any longer, and her head sank on his breast. He had thrown a protecting arm around her shoulders, and he felt her supple body quiver under a sob which she tried to restrain.
“Nancy,” he whispered, “am I to take you with me?”
“Yes,” she said brokenly.
“You mean that we are to be a law unto ourselves, and thereby make divorce proceedings inevitable? I must put it that way, my dear one! I must understand!”
“Yes, Derry. You must understand. There is no other way.”
He held her so tightly that he became aware of the mad racing of her heart, and a great pity stirred his inmost core. How she must have suffered! What agony was this forced discarding, one by one, of her maidenly defenses! Though he had been blind and deaf solely because of the depth and intensity of his love and reverence, he could utter now only a halting plea that would explain his slowness of perception.