Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/107

 timacy, and was indeed, just upon the threshold of one very great discovery when he made another, perhaps equally surprising, but vastly less important. Looking into the upturned eyes, which after the canons of Delsarte, he was thinking expressed "devotion" perfectly, a shadow was seen to project itself downward from the upper lids across the iris, as if a storm were gathering on a placid lake. John watched the shadow curiously as it deepened, until it became clear that a mist was congealing in those swimming violet depths.

"Why, Bessie," he exclaimed, amazed, "you are going to cry!"

On the instant two tears trickled from the dark lashes and gleamed for a moment like solitaire diamonds in the setting of two ruby spots that had gathered unaccountably upon her upturned cheeks.

"You are crying," he charged straightly.

Bessie's expression never changed, but her smooth, round chin nodded a trembling and unabashed assent. A sudden impulse seized John. The position of his arms shifted.

"Bessie!" he murmured feelingly, "I am going to kiss you!"

Bessie did not appear half as surprised at this announcement as Hampstead at himself for making it.

"May I?" he persisted.

The expression of devotion in Bessie's swimming orbs remained unstartled, her pose unaltered. Only her lips moved while she breathed a single word: "Yes."

Instantly their ruby and velvet softness yielded to the pressure of John's, planted as tenderly and chastely as was his thought of her,—for that other discovery that he was on the verge of making had been fended off by the coming of the tear.