"
How monstrous it had seemed! Had she cried--poor little soul!
He looked down at her eyelashes. Her cheek had been of the same
colour and texture then. That came back to him too. The impulse to
tighten his arms was infernally powerful--almost automatic.
"She has no one but me to remember!" he heard his own child voice
saying fiercely. Good Lord, it WAS as if it had been yesterday.
He actually gulped something down in his throat.
"You haven't rested much," he said aloud. "There's a conservatory
with marble seats and corners and a fountain going. Will you let
me take you there when we stop dancing? I want to apologize to
you."
The eyelashes lifted themselves and made round her eyes the
big soft shadow of which Sara Studleigh had spoken. A strong and
healthy valvular organ in his breast lifted itself curiously at
the same time.
"To apologize?"
Was he speaking to her almost as if she were still four or five?
It was to the helplessness of those years he was about to explain--and
yet he did not feel as though he were still eight.
"I want to tell you why I never came back to the garden. It was
a broken promise, wasn't it?"
The music had not ceased, but they stopped dancing.
"Will you come?" he said and she went with him like a child--just
as she had followed in her babyhood. It seemed only natural to do
what he asked.
The conservatory was like an inner Paradise now.
Pages:
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438