“Well, Eve?” he demanded, almost sharply. “Two months to-day. Will you? We can get the parson feller that comes here from Rocky Springs to––marry us.”
The dwarf brushed his rope out of his lap, and, rising, hobbled to Eve’s side, and stood peering up into her face in his bird-like way. But he offered no word.
Eve’s hand caressed his silky head. She nodded, nodded at the distant hills through the window.
“Yes, Will, dear.”
The man was at her side in an instant, while Elia slunk away. The youth drew back and turned tail, slinking off as though driven by a cruel lash in the hand of one from whom kindness is expected. He did not return to his seat, but passed out of the house. And the girl and man, in their moment of rapture, forgot him. At that moment their lives, their happiness, their love, were the bounds of their whole thought.
For moments they stood locked in each other’s arms, oblivious to all but the hot passion that ran through their veins. They were lost in the dream of love which was theirs. The world was nothing, life was nothing, except that it gave them this power to love. They drank in each other’s kisses till the woman lay panting in the fierce embrace of the man, and he––he was devouring her with eyes which hungered for her, like the eyes of a starving man, while he crushed her in the arms of a man savage with the delicious pain of his passion.
At last it was the woman who stirred to release herself. It is ever the woman who leads where love dominates. She gently but firmly freed herself. She held his hands and looked up into his glowing eyes. She had something to say, something to ask him, and, reluctant though she be, she must abandon for the time the blissful moments when their mutual love was burning to the exclusion of all else. Will’s passionate eyes held her, and for some moments she could not speak. Then, with an effort, she released his hands and defensively turned her eyes away.
“I––I want to speak to you about––Jim,” she said at last, a little hesitatingly.