Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/82

 "The best thing that can happen to me is to break my neck and be done with it."

"It would break my heart, too."

She was mad surely. She was telling him she loved him, in so many words. She got up dizzily and put out both hands to hold him off.

"I shouldn't have said that. I'm going back now. Please stay here. Oh, please don't touch me. I must be crazy."

But it was too late. His arms were around her.

"Then we're both crazy," he said. "Ever since I first saw you I've been fighting against it, Kay. I'm mad about you. There's never been anybody else, not like this."

But the next moment reason, lost to her, reasserted itself in him. Without kissing her he let her go, and stood back.

"Now you go back to the house," he told her. "I'm not trusting myself too far. Nor you either."

"If you care, that's all I want."

"Care! If you think about it, you'll know. And you'll know you're all I've got, in heaven and earth. And I won't have that very long. Now go back to the house."

"You can have me always, if you want me."

"You don't know what you're saying," he said, roughly. "Go on back when I tell you. I'll wait until you're in the house."

There was nothing left for her to do. The finality of his tone forbade her reopening the question between them. She started across the lawn, and half way over she turned and looked back. He was where she had left him, rigid and watchful. She went drearily back to the house and crawled into her bed Toward morning, her slim bare arms relaxed on the counterpane, she even slept a little, but when she wakened it was to find that Tom had gone into the mountains, and would not be back until the round-up was over.

She was completely crushed.

"Kay, do you remember where you left your rain coat?"

"At the barn, mother."

"Run and get it, so Nora can pack it."

George Potter and the banker came out at noon. They lunched and then retired to the office and closed the door.