Flaming Youth

CHAPTER XXVI

Never in all her career of coquetry had Pat devoted more careful planning than to her meeting with Cary Scott when he should return. At first sight of him all her elaborate campaign was dissipated in consternation.

"Mist-er Scott!" she cried.

He had come out from the city direct to Holiday Knoll and was standing in the library, as she came downstairs to meet him, the morning light brilliant on his haggard face. At her exclamation a wry smile twisted his lips.

"Still that, to you?" he asked.

She moved toward him slowly, a little shyly, with fluttering hands outstretched, lips upturned, rather from the wish to comfort his manifest suffering than from any impulse of passion within herself. He drew her into his arms, bent over her, kissed her gently. She felt him tremble in her clasp.

"What is it, Cary?" she whispered. "You look too appalling."

"I haven't slept very well."

She drew back to survey him. "I don't believe you've slept at all," she pronounced. "Have you?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does! You mustn't take it that way."

His expression told her that her coolness amazed him. And, then, suddenly, by reflex from him, it amazed herself. It was so exactly the reverse of the programmed course of events as presented in the familiar media of her reading. She, the woman, the "betrayed," was striving to comfort and reassure him, the man, the "betrayer."

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"Did you expect that I should take it lightly, Pat?"

"No, but——"

"I love you," he said. No more than that, hardly above his breath. But it was as if he had pronounced the final word of passion, of yearning, of devotion; his full confession of the bond which is at once primal and eternal between man and woman.

She dropped her head. The thick clusters of her hair rippled forward, almost concealing the eyes which she lifted, aslant, alight, mischievous, yet craving, to his.

"Do you?" she whispered. "Do you truly?" She nestled again, close in his embrace.

"And you, Pat?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered, troubled. "I've hardly been able to think—since. I suppose I must; but——"

"We have a great deal to say to each other," he began gravely, when she broke in:

"I've had so much else to think about. Have you heard about poor Dee?"

"Dee? No. What is it?"

"It isn't exactly Dee. It's Jimmie. He was run over by a car three days ago."

"Not killed!"

"Almost. It's his back. Bobs says they can save him but it would be kinder to let him die. He'll never be anything but a helpless log."

"Good Heavens! Poor Dee! I must go over there."

"We'll go over together. I'll tell you as we go." She ran to get her hat, returned at once, setting it in place on her mutinous hair, stood studying him for a moment through half-closed eyes, then leapt to him, flung her arms about his body, pressed her cheek to his, murmuring, "It's too flawless to have you back, Cary!"

Outside, she said, "Dee was going to leave him."

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"No! For what earthly reason?"

"I can't tell you. Yes, I can. I can tell you anything—now." She flushed, but looked at him unflinchingly. "It's strange, isn't it?"