Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/98

 Curiously, O'Hara flushed, the red mounting slowly beneath the dark-tanned skin.

"I thought," he said a little sadly, "that her husband or Mrs. Struthers might have raised objections. . . . I know how they feel toward me. There's no use pretending not to know."

"It is quite possible," said Sabine.

There was a sudden embarrassing silence, which gave Sabine time to pull her wits together and organize a thousand sudden thoughts and impressions. She was beginning to understand, bit by bit, the real reasons of their hatred for O'Hara, the reasons which lay deep down underneath, perhaps so deep that none of them ever saw them for what they were.

And then out of the silence she heard the voice of O'Hara saying, in a queer, hushed way, "I mean to ask something of you . . . something that may sound ridiculous. I don't pretend that it isn't, but I mean to ask it anyway."

For a moment he hesitated and then, rising quickly, he stood looking away from her out of the door, toward the distant blue marshes and the open sea. She fancied that he was trembling a little, but she could not be certain. What she did know was that he made an immense and heroic effort, that for a moment he, a man who never did such things, placed himself in a position where he would be defenseless and open to being cruelly hurt; and for the moment all the recklessness seemed to flow out of him and in its place there came a queer sadness, almost as if he felt himself defeated in some way. . ..

He said, "What I mean to ask you is this. . . . Will you ask me sometimes here to the cottage when she will be here too?" He turned toward her suddenly and added, "It will mean a great deal to me . . . more than you can imagine."

She did not answer him at once, but sat watching him with a poorly concealed intensity; and presently, flicking the ciga-