She lay still, trembling with rapture in the close pressure of his fond arms. She felt his kisses falling softly, warmly on her face, her lips, her hair. At last she drew herself from him, saying, with rapturous wonder:
"You really want me to love you, Eliot?"
Half smiling at her wondering tone, he exclaimed:
"What a strange question, Una! Have I not been waiting almost a year for your heart to wake from its childish sleep and respond to mine? And how else could you requite aught I have done for you? Do you not know, my darling, that love must be paid in its own coin?"
Doubting, wondering, she looked up into those glorious blue-gray orbs now full of a radiant fire impossible to describe. Something of the truth dawned on her bewildered soul. She cried out impulsively:
"Oh, Eliot, then you do love me? And I have been so wretched, so afraid, so—"
No more, for he had caught her in his arms, crushing her passionately to his breast, whispering that he had loved her always, always, and had grown so weary, so impatient waiting to win her heart.
"There was no need to wait if you had not been so blind," answered truthful Una. "For I loved you, Eliot, from the very first!"