She had picked up a book from the table and was reading the title. Her eyes did not lift to his. “What could I be—offended about?” In spite of the best she could do, her voice was a little tremulous.
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“No.” The lashes fluttered up. She had to meet his gaze or confess that she was afraid to.
“You’re different. You—”
He stopped, struck dumb. A wild hope flamed up in him. What was it the shy, soft eyes were telling him against her will? He stood on the threshold of knowledge, his heart drumming fast.
During that moment of realization they were lost in each other’s eyes. The soul of each was drawn as by a magnet out of the body to that region beyond space where the spirits of lovers are fused.
Betty’s hands lifted ever so slightly in a gesture of ultimate and passionate surrender to this force which had taken hold of her so completely.
Then, with no conscious volition on the part of either, they were in each other’s arms, swept there by a rising tide of emotion that drowned thought.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE BLUEBIRD ALIGHTS AND THEN TAKES WING
Tug pushed Betty from him. Out of a full tide of feeling he came to consciousness of what he was doing.