His arms leapt out to meet her, then fell disappointedly.
“But your hair,” he muttered. “You haven’t taken down your hair!”
“It occurred to me that you might like to do that yourself.” She advanced and knelt beside the bed.
“Oh, yes—yes!”
For an ecstatic moment his trembling hands fumbled with the heavy pins. Then her hair, a rippling shower of perfumed copper, fell between them. With a gasp, Alexis laid his hands in it. Twisting a clinging lock about his fingers, he kissed it wildly. The tears starting beneath closed lids he fell back limply upon the bed.
A lump in her throat, Anne shook her head. “Alexis, this is bad for you. Let me go,” she whispered in a frightened voice. Beneath the laboring chest his heart leapt up at her like a caged, thing. It made her afraid. “I must go.”
“No, no,” he whispered, “don’t leave me, Anne. Let me die like this. It is too beautiful!”
With a smothered sob, she laid her wet cheek against his.
“No, no, you must live Alexis—you must live—for me.”
He opened his eyes for the sheer wonder of it.