He slowed up the pace that was rapidly nearing them to home. His storming voice deepened reluctantly into a distressful tenderness.
“What’s the matter? You mustn’t cry in the street, Nita! You mustn’t, dear.”
“Oh, I’ve had such a horrid, horrid, horrid time!” The tears were blinding her so that she leaned unseeing on the enfolding arm that guided her. “I don’t mind your scolding me. I’m not crying for that. I don’t mind anything you say. I don’t mind even your not having kissed me. Nothing makes any difference to me as long as it’s you. I’m crying because I’m so glad it’s you, and I can hear your voice again. When I was trying to find you it seemed as if it would never end; it seemed—it seemed——” She raised her wet eyes to his.
He took a swift look up and down the empty, lifeless street, laid out straight and stiff in the cold, faint glimmer of the dawn, and then his lips sought hers in deep, deep acknowledgment of the joy, and of the sorrow, to which all love is born—one of those moments stolen in its beautifulness from the life to come.
But his voice was tense again, as he set her down within her own doorway, and he looked at her with stern eyes of jealous care, from which she hid the woman’s smile of love at dear love’s unreason.
“You’re nearly dead! Don’t you stir out of this house to-morrow until I come home—do you hear? Never surprise me again!”