Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/404

 glimpse of a thin little moon in a faint green sky.

As he looked at Anne, Maxwell felt a lump in his throat. She had given him her hand and had smiled at him. "How are the kittens?" she had asked in an effort to be gay.

He did not answer her question. He went, rather, directly to the point. "Anne, why wouldn't you kiss me on that last night?"

She flushed to the roots of her hair. "It—it was because I loved you, Max."

"I thought so. But you had to prove it to yourself?"

"Yes."

"Anne, that's why I've let you alone all winter—so that you might prove it. But—I can't go on. It has been an awful winter for me, Anne."

It had been an awful winter for her. But she had come out of it knowing herself. And even when at last his arms were about her and he was telling her that he would never let her go, she had a plea to make:

"Don't let me live too softly, Max. Life isn't a feather bed You belong to the world. I must go with you toward the big things. But now and then we'll run back to the farm."

"What do I care where we run, so that we run—together!" 398