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 FLAMING

YOUTH

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The violin was sobbing, panting, pleading like a woman in sweet distress. The wind swept the notes to them until the whole room was surcharged with the passion and grief of it. Pat lifted Scott’s hand, cuddled it to her cheek, flipped it away carelessly, turned from him, drifted out of the den into the hallway, back again, and to the divan in the

far corner, where she threw herself, snuggling amidst the pillows. Her eyes grew heavy, languorous; in their depths played a shadowed gleam like the far reflection of flame in the heart of sombre waters. The long, thrilling, haunted, wind-borne prayer of the violin penetrated to the innermost fibre of her, mingling there with the passionate sense of his nearness, swaying her to undefined and flasbing languors, to unthinkable urgencies. “Oh, Cary!” she breathed, in the breaking seduction of her voice, a voice that blended and was one with the

resistless pleading of the music. And again: “Oh, Cary!” Her arms yearned out to him, drawing him through the dimness. With a cry he leapt to her, clasped her, felt her young strength and lissome grace yield to his enfoldment. Through her sundered lips he drew the wine of her breath deep, deep into his veins, until all his self was merged and lost in her passion. Outside the great wind possessed the world, full of the turbulence, the fever, the unassuaged desire of Spring, the allegro furioso of the elements, and through it pierced the unbearable sweetness of the stringed melody. The strain died.

Was it after a minute, or an hour, or

a night that was an age in their intertwined lives? He was back at the window, leaning against the casement, drawing the rushing wind into his lungs, his heart bursting, his soul a whirl of fire.