Page:Glitter (1926).pdf/72

 Glitter. That was it. I'm really nothing but glitter, Jock."

Her earnestness was lost on him. He knew only that she was wonderful and desirable and near, so near that he had but to put out his arms to hold her imprisoned. He fought down his impulse to do this, and answered her impatiently, almost angrily. "Yvonne—don't—you mustn't say things like that! I love you, worship you—I'll always love you—do you think love is a thing one can drop like a toy because someone says, 'That isn't what you want'? It is what I want! It's what I know now I can't live without—loving you. Yvonne, is there any reason why I can't? Do you love someone else, so that I'm only making myself ridiculous in your eyes? Is that what you want me to know?"

"No," said Yvonne slowly. "No, I don't love anyone else."

Then Jock put out his arms and caught her to him, and a thing like a sob welled up in him so that he could not speak. He touched his hands to her hair, her glorious hair, and to the line of her cheek, and very gently, very softly, he kissed her eyelids, her throat, her mouth. . . . Ethereal kisses, not of the flesh, because he was full of a tenderness and a reverence stronger and greater than passion.

And bye and bye she held herself away, at arms' length, and her eyes seemed to bear down deep into the heart of him. For an age. For an eternity. And at last she shrugged and said, "So be it. But I told you the truth. And sometime, when you learn that it was the truth, I want you to remember that I told you—once—my dear."