“Why not?” he cried, a hot light leaping into his eyes. “I’d do more than that any day. I’d hand out everything, if it left me without a cent in the world—for you. You see, little girl, I want to hand you a real swell time. Dancing don’t mean a lot to me. With a girl it’s surely diff’rent. Say, Molly, you just don’t know the thing you’ve been to me around these hills. I’d never have got through or made good without you. Say——”
The man’s words had come quickly. His tone rang with a sincerity which, at the moment, was completely real. And as he made a sudden movement towards her, a movement which there could be no mistaking, the passion in his dark eyes was an expression of the stirring of his whole manhood.
The girl stood like some simple, defenceless, fascinated creature. And only a wealth of rich colour dyed the soft roundness of her cheeks, and a shy responsive gladness lit her big eyes. Coquetry was impossible to her. So, too, was any girlish, unmeant denial. The passion of love she had nursed ever since her great realisation well-nigh suffocated her. It completely robbed her of all power for connected thought and speech.
For Molly the next few moments were filled with a wild rush of confused emotions, and unutterable happiness. It seemed to her that life could never again afford her a moment of delight comparable with that through which she was passing. She hardly knew; she certainly did not pause to think. For one wild moment she was caught and tightly held in the arms which had never failed to stir her admiration. She seemed to feel, in the delirium of it all, the strong beating of the man’s heart against hers. Then came those kisses upon her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, her forehead. And as she abandoned herself to them her young heart was driving fiercely to make return.
Then—then—it was over. She had released herself, and she knew not how or why. Her returning senses revealed to her his passion-lit eyes gazing down into hers. Her bosom was heaving in a tumult of emotion, and every limb of her body was a-shake. But happiness, supreme happiness that was well-nigh exaltation, thrilled her. Life seemed at the very pinnacle of its amazing beauty.
In that brief, delirious moment of spiritual expression Molly’s whole world had somehow become transfigured. Everything was changed. Her whole life had changed out of the even, unemotional calm she had hitherto known. It seemed as if a great new light were shining somewhere deep down in her soul, diffusing wonderful rays to the uttermost extremities of her being, lighting a path of unspeakable joy down the channels of her senses. The golden sunlight of the day about her had intensified. It had become doubly brilliant and more full of meaning. The old homestead, so full of the calm beauty of her childhood’s sheltered happiness, the very trees and hills about it, all these, everything, had doubled the depth of their concern for her innocent mind.
Then the man with his passionate eyes, his strong arms, and sturdy body. He, too, had shared in the transformation. No longer was he the struggling object of her girlish pity; no longer was he a creature who had played the cruel rôle of fortune’s shuttle-cock. All that was wiped out. It was all brushed away by the gilded artistry that had re-adorned her vision of life. He was the golden superman of her soul, crowned with the sublime halo of her young love.
They both stood speechless. Then at last it was the man who broke the silence.
“You—aren’t mad with me, Molly?” he asked, still holding her by the hands that were so soft and warm in his. But his tone was without the doubt his words implied, and his smile was full of confidence.
Molly shook her head. Then she released her hands which moved in a queer little gesture that told so much.