With a start she gained her feet and stood for a moment palpitatingly uncertain, clasping and unclasping her hands, while her bosom rose and fell in this stress of an utterly new emotion.
One whom she loved was threatened, now. The maternal instinct of womankind is never more prominent than when it is exercised in the protection of the man she loves, and who is destined to be the father of her offspring. It is a grand and a noble sentiment, and no man lives who will ever comprehend it; but when a man loves as I loved then, he can appreciate its fullness, even though he may not understand it; he can recognize its existence and presence, even though it would be impossible for him to define it.
And it was the maternal instinct that governed her in that moment of terrorized realization of the dangers which threatened me.
I had suddenly become her charge and care. She saw herself as responsible for the conditions that menaced me, and she was like a wild partridge sheltering its brood, and which will not hesitate to face any peril for their protection.
I was always more or less indifferent, if not insensible, to danger. It may not necessarily be bravery that refuses to recognize perils; it may be an instinctive quality of dominance, and self-confidence which is convinced of its power to overcome them.
I rose and stood beside her, putting my arm around her as we faced the window from the opposite side of the room.
"Out there lies danger, Zara," I said smiling, "but here, in this room, dwells happiness."
"There can be no happiness with death waiting for you outside," she said, with sharp decision.
"Zara, my love!"
She wheeled upon me and clasped her hands together behind my neck, looking up at me with trouble-shrouded eyes, and with brows that were slightly corrugated by the perplexities of the moment.