If you have lost it by some accident, that is only the
fortune of life. But you can't disguise yourself as a commonplace
person, for you're not. And--I can't let you go out of my life--I
can't."
Again silence, while the sunset skies slowly faded into the dusky blue
of night, and the lights over the distant city grew brighter and
brighter. A light wind, warmly smoky with the pleasant fragrance of
burning bonfires, touched the faces of the two in the car and blew small
curly strands of hair about Anne Linton's ears.
Presently she spoke. "I am going to promise to write to you now and
then," she said, "and give you each time an address where you may
answer, if you will promise not to come to me. I am going to tell you
frankly that I want your letters."
"You want my letters--but not me?"
"You put more of yourself into your letters than any one else I know. So
in admitting that I want your letters I admit that I want yourself--as a
good friend."
"No more than that?"
"That's quite enough, isn't it, for people who know each other only as
we do?"
"It's not enough for me. If it's enough for you, then--well, it's as I
thought."
"What did you think?"
He hesitated, then spoke boldly: "No woman really wants--a mangled human
being for her own."
Impulsively she laid her hand on his. Instantly he grasped it. "Please,"
she said, "will you never say--or think--that, again?"
He gazed eagerly into her face, still duskily visible to his scrutiny.
Pages:
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180