That kiss stirred to life all the Puritan blood of Mollie, the racial inheritance from a rock-ribbed ancestry. She pushed him from her with all the force of a despairing energy.
“No . . . no . . . no!” she cried, and fled to the room back of the shop.
She was afraid of his passionate tenderness for her, but she was afraid, too, of the deep yearning of her whole being for the love he offered.
In the days that followed Scot McClintock fought the fight of his life. He had always prided himself that he was master of his desires. When he yielded to self-indulgence it was because he chose to follow for a time the path of dalliance. But this keen-edged longing for the woman he loved flooded his being, swept over him like great waves over a bather in the surf. It set him fifty times pacing the floor, to and fro, to and fro. For the first time in his life he learned that he had nerves. There was a passionate urge in him to take what he wanted. He could make her happy in spite of all the tongues that would clack, in spite of cynical smiles and hard unforgiveness on the part of the world.
But could he? Would his love be enough to insure Mollie’s happiness if he overbore her scruples? He knew it would not. There was in her a something fine and flowerlike that blossomed shyly through all the sordid impedimenta of her life. If he snatched at her, as a child does at a rose, the fragrant beauty of her would be crushed and lost.
Yet Scot knew that it was the best of him that wanted her. This was the real thing that had come to him at last. Love had penetrated the folly and waste of his life. Its rapier thrust had pushed through the conceits of manner and dress in which he had wrapped himself. It called to the simple elemental manhood in him.
He knew how his world would take it if he eloped with Mollie. His old father, Alexander McClintock, a Bible-reading Presbyterian of granitic faith, would cast him off with a gesture worthy of the ancient prophets. Hugh would be hurt and shocked, but he would not give him up. Virginia City would be interested but not outraged, for the town had by this time become accustomed to unexpected shifts in marital relations. The legal divorce had not yet reached Nevada, but a simple substitute for it was not infrequent. Many young women who had come from the East by way of the Overland Trail had found the long desert trip destructive of romance and had deserted their rough and weatherworn husbands for more devoted and attractive lovers. In Mollie’s case the camp would find extenuating circumstances. Dodson was a ne’er-do-well of a particularly despicable type. He was a shiftless, wife-beating drunkard. It had not been his fault that Jerry Mulligan had persisted in recovering from the knife thrust in his side. Moreover, Scot was known to be no Lothario. The general verdict would be that it was nobody’s affair but that of the principals. If Dodson felt aggrieved he could always appeal to Judge Colt as a court of last resort.
Yes, but Scot had to think of Mollie herself—of Mollie into whose cheeks he could send the delicate colour flying, whose pulses he could set beating with a burst of music in her heart. The thought of her drenched him with despair. How could he protect her if he remained a stranger in her life? Yet if he broke the code with her he would be saving her from distress only to plunge her into greater trouble.