by Rex Beach
“I have learned much also,” said he. “I wish you might teach me more.”
“I—I—don’t think I could teach you any more,” she hesitated.
He moved as though to speak, but held back and tore his eyes away from her.
“Well,” she inquired, gazing at him covertly.
“Once, a long time ago, I read a Lover’s Petition, and ever since knowing you I have made the constant prayer that I might be given the purity to be worthy the good in you, and that you might be granted the patience to reach the good in me—but it’s no use. But at least I’m glad we have met on common ground, as it were, and that you understand, in a measure. The prayer could not be answered; but through it I have found myself and—I have known you. That last is worth more than a king’s ransom to me. It is a holy thing which I shall reverence always, and when you go you will leave me lonely except for its remembrance.”
“But I am not going,” she said. “That is—unless—”
Something in her voice swept his gaze back from the shimmering causeway that rippled seaward to the rising moon. It brought the breath into his throat, and he shook as though seized by a great fear.
“Unless—what?”
“Unless you want me to”
“Oh, God! don’t play with me!” He flung out his hand as though to stop her while his voice died out to a supplicating hoarseness. “I can’t stand that.”
“Don’t you see? Won’t you see?” she asked. “I was waiting here for the courage to go to you since you have made it so very hard for me—my pagan.” With which she came close to him, looking upward into his face, smiling a little, shrinking a little, yielding yet withholding, while the moonlight made of her eyes two bottomless, boundless pools, dark with love, and brimming with the promise of his dreams.
THE END
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