Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/296

 when the woman you love says a thing like that, it takes a strong man indeed—or a light man indeed (a faun-like creature whom love touches superficially) to resist satisfying that wanting, that hunger a little. Roger was not a light man, nor yet a very strong one, he concluded, when he was near Sheilah and her voice broke and there were tears in her eyes. Was he greatly to be blamed for taking her in his arms that day?

He didn't kiss her. He seldom kissed her, she paid so highly for it afterward. He simply held her in his arms a moment and breathed into her soft thick hair—as warm as a bed of meadow-moss under a hot sun, and as alive and vibrant. And as fragrant too! He had never observed that strange, sweet fragrance of a woman's hair when you breathe into it, before. He had never breathed into a woman's hair before. He told Sheilah so. Womanlike she loved being told that she was the first one with whom he had shared this or that experience, however slight. And he could often tell her so, even though she had arrived so late. For never before had he been forced to seek beauty by such circuitous routes. In many things Sheilah held the position of priority with him, due to the restrictions he was obliged to observe.

But in spite of the restrictions, and the mutual acceptance of the fact that they never could be more