"Ah, yes—even if I loved you—as I love—him whom I love."
Her clear eyes were looking straight into mine now. Again her voice had stirred some new and untouched chord which curiously thrilled, sounding stealthily within me.
She lowered her eyes to the blue blossom in her fingers, and I saw her crush it. What soft, white fingers she had! The flushed tips, crushing the blossom, fascinated me.
Again, suddenly, my heart began to beat heavily, thumping in my throat so strangely that I shivered and passed my hand over my breast.
Silver Heels bent lower over her idle hands; her fingers, so exquisite, were still now.
Presently I said, "Who is this fool whom you love?"
I had not thought to fright or hurt her, but she flushed and burned until all her face was surging scarlet to her hair.
"Silver Heels," I stammered, catching her fingers.
At the touch the strange thrill struck through my body and I choked, unable to utter a word; but the desire for her hands set me quivering, and I caught her fingers and drew them, interlocked, from her eyes. Her eyes! Their beauty amazed me; their frightened, perilous sweetness drew my head down to them. Breathless, her mouth touched mine; against me her heart was beating; then suddenly she had gone, and I sprang to my feet to find her standing tearful, quivering, with her hands on her throbbing throat. I leaned against a sapling, dazed, content to meet her eyes and strive to think. Useless! In my whirling thoughts I could but repeat her name, endlessly. Other thoughts crept in, but flew scattering to the four winds, while every pulse within me throbbed out her name, repeating, ceaselessly repeating, in my beating heart.
We were so poor in years, so utterly untried in love, that the strangeness of it set us watching one another. Passion, shaking frail bodies, startles, till pain, always creeping near, intrudes, dismaying maid and youth to love's confusion.