Page:Son of the wind.djvu/230

RV 214 He took the hand and drew it down. "Not a bit. Look here—I have never been angry with you. How could I be? I wouldn't do anything to hurt you or distress you for the world. You know that, don't you?"

This time her head nodded.

He tipped his back to look up into her face, a little humorously. "Then am I forgiven?"

"There is nothing to forgive."

"Ah, you're right about that," he said quickly. "Didn't you know that in the first place?" She became dumb. "Did you think I was an easy sort, was that way with most women?"

"No, no, I didn't! I don't know what I thought! I can't tell you."

"I will tell you anything you want to know," Carron said. "I'll tell you what I'm thinking now." But indeed he was not thinking. He was no more thinking than a swimmer is walking, when, just over his depth in water, he feels his chin buoyed up and his toes scarcely touching the sand. In all his logical, hard-worked life he had never felt any sensation so heavenly as this one—of being set afloat in the warm tide of emotion. His hands glided around hers. He would have set his cheek against the broad, white arch of her forehead.

"Oh, no, no, no," she kept murmuring, a shower