"'Drina, dear child,' he said in a whisper"
She took his arm, laughing a low, pleased laugh, quite unconscious of all the havoc she was causing, never analyzing the moods of the night and the soul which were stealing over her too in an uncomprehended happiness.
"I think I could tell you anything, Bojo," she said gently. "You seem to understand, and so much that I don't say too!"
All at once she slipped and flung back against him to avoid falling. He held her thus—his arm around her.
"Turn your ankle? Hurt?"
"No, no—ouf!"
A galloping gust came tearing over the snow, whirling white spirals, showering them with a myriad of tiny, pointed crystal sparks, stinging their cheeks and blinding their eyes. With a laugh she turned her head away and shrank up close to him, still in the protection of his arms. The gust fled romping away and still they stood, suddenly hushed, clinging with half-closed eyes. She sought to free herself, felt his arms retaining her, glanced up frightened, and then yielded, swaying against him.
"Drina—dear child," he said in a whisper that was wrenched from his soul. Such a sensation of warmth and gladness, of life and joy, entered his being that all other thoughts disappeared tumultuously, as he held her thus in his arms, there alone in the silence and the luminous night, reveling wildly in the knowledge that the same inevitable impulse had drawn her also to him.
"Oh, Bojo, we mustn't, we can't!"