Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/157

 his breast and she was looking up into his face trustfully, expectantly even, when suddenly—the thing happened. All at once he was crushing her to him madly, and she was wanting to be crushed, her lips fused to his lips. His proposal, so carefully thought out, had been short-circuited. Love like a spark had leaped from heart to heart before the tardy words could utter themselves.

George Judson had planned it a thousand times—how reverently and how tenderly he would hold her in his arms and whisper his love to her enraptured ears—but something—the touch of her, the warmth of her, the infectious, intimate nearness of her—the long, long want of a dozen years—

After a time, rather breathless, they stared and each saw in the other's eyes a fleeting look of fright. There followed another kiss, more tender, less passionate, than the first, full of reassurance and the sweet promise of a sincere and mutual love. Almost immediately they were sitting again on the rustic bench, he reproaching himself, and she poking at some locks of hair which she felt rather than saw were disarranged; both were laughing nervously.

"I—I didn't finish—" he remembered—with obvious embarrassment.

"What is it, George?" she asked softly, with