Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/226

214 unfathomed eyes was pleading, pleading all but pitiful. I did not know what to do, what to say.

At last:

'Dear girl,' I said seriously; 'I'm afraid you're still in love with me.'

She answered nothing.

'I wish you weren't,' I said. 'If you only knew what folly it is—love, everything! In ten years, you may be a worm-eaten piece of carrion: in less, perhaps. I too. Where do you think you'll be then? Where shall I be? What'll be the good of your having loved me? or of my having loved you?'

'You don't love me,' she murmured, with eyes far away.

'By Love,' I said, 'I don't know if I love you or not! Do you love me? '

She smiled a little.

'Ah!' said I, 'I wish to goodness you didn't then!' 'Why shouldn't I if I like?' she murmured, with eyes still far away and something of a little smile round her lips. I slipped my arm round her shoulders, and led her gently towards the door.

'Come,' I said, 'we have talked enough. Let us go to bed, and sleep. If so be that' At the door curtains, I turned a little, saying:

'I have forgotten to blow out the candles.'

I went back and blew them out. She waited for me. We went on together, I with my arm round her shoulders as before, through the dark dining-room, and salon just lit with the light from the open door-frame, and into the lighter morning-room, where I said:

'Are you afraid of death. Rosy?' 'No,' she said; 'I'm not afraid of it.'

(We had passed through the curtains into the bedroom, lit with two unshaded candles.)

She said no more, nor did I. And we went on to the bed: where I sat her down, and myself close beside her. Her hands she put together in her lap.

'Would you be afraid to die to-night?' I said softly in her ear, 'Rosy.'

'No,' she said.