Flaming Youth

CHAPTER XXIV

He walked back with her to Holiday Knoll after dinner. Pat's face was thoughtful, moody. As they paced in silence he studied it intently, with passionate longings, with passionate misgivings. Out of a reverie she spoke.

"I've never missed anyone in my life as I've missed you. You were right."

"About what, Pat?"

"That day you took me to Philadelphia. You said I'd miss you more than I thought. D'you remember, I told you then what I thought about it. 'Oh, well, I'll miss him for a few days and then—pouf!'" There followed the impatient, boyish wriggle and hunch of the lithe shoulders. "'It'll be all over.' It wasn't all over."

"For me it has never been over. Not for a single minute."

"Have you wanted me so much?" Beneath the conscious coquetry there was a more wistful note.

"Oh, God, Pat!" His voice sounded thick and rough. "There has been no colour or savour, no music or fragrance in life without you."

"Why did you go away?" she demanded accusingly.

"You know, I had to go."

"Why did you come back?"

"Not to see you. I didn't want to see you. Dee told me that you were away."

"She told me you were here. I'd phoned over about some clothes. So I just thought I'd like to see you again. Don't scowl at me. You look as if you think I ought not to have come."

[Pg 242]
"No; you oughtn't."

"Are you sorry I did?"

He looked away from her into the wind-swept night.

"Are you angry because I did?"

"I love you," he burst out. "God, how I love you!"

She laughed softly. Her hand slid down his arm, clasped for a moment the wrist in which his pulses leapt madly to her touch, wreathed itself, cool and strong and smooth, around his palm. "And I love you," she half-whispered gaily. "I'm terribly in love with you"—a pause of deliberate intent—"to-night. Because you've been away from me so long."

"Ah, yes, to-night!" He made no effort to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "But, to-morrow——"

"To-night's to-night," she broke in happily. "We've got lots of it to ourselves. It's only nine o'clock. I broke away early on purpose." Arrested by the look on his face, she added with exasperation and protest: "Cary! You're not going to play propriety to-night? When we haven't seen each other for so long?"

She shook the gleamy mist of her hair about her face, gave a gnomish bend and twist to body and neck and peered sidelong at him from out the tangle.

Suddenly her face darted upward. Her mouth met his in a grotesque parody of a passion-laden kiss.

"Oh, bad bunny!" she admonished herself in mock reproach. He stopped, gazing at her from beneath bent brows.

"You hated that, didn't you?" she said.

"Yes."

"Because it wasn't real?"

"Because it was mockery."

"Petite gamine stuff. But I'm not petite gamine to-night; [Pg 243]I'm something else. I don't know what I am. Do you?"

"No."

"Don't be cross with me. Whatever it is that I am, it's sorry that it kissed you that way. I didn't mean to make a josh of it."

He smiled. "One might as well try to be cross with a moonbeam."