Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/100

 muscles rippled beneath the skin as if they too were made of some marvelous flexible steel.

Willie Harrison took Lily's hand and put an end to the turning of the rings. "Tell me, Lily," he said softly, "is it no use? Maybe next year or the year after?"

All at once as though she had heard him for the first time, she turned and placed the other hand gently on top of his, looking up at the same time from beneath the wide brim of her hat. "It's no use, Willie. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry." She laughed softly. "But you were wrong in your method. You shouldn't have given me the promise about Europe. When I marry, it will be a man who will not let me leave his side."

That was all she said to him. The rest, whatever it was, remained hidden, deep within her, behind the dark eyes which found so little interest in Willie Harrison, which saw nothing but the blond giant who moved with such uncanny strength, with such incredibly easy grace about his heroic task. Perhaps if Willie had guessed, even for a moment, what was passing in her mind, he would have blushed, for Willie was, so people said, a nice young man who had led a respectable life. Such things were no doubt incomprehensible to him. Perhaps if she had spoken the truth, if she had bothered herself to explain, she would have said, "I could not marry you. I could give myself to no man but one who caught my fancy, in whom there was strength and the grace of a fine animal. Beauty, Willie, counts for much . . . far more than you guess, living always as you do in the midst of all this savage uproar. I am rich. Your money means nothing. And your power! It is not worth the snap of a finger to me. . . . Ah, if you had a face like that workman . . . a face . . . a real face, and a body . . . a real body like his, then you might ask with hope. It is hopeless, Willie. You do not interest me, though I am not eager to hurt you just the same."

But she said none of these things, for people seldom say them. On the contrary, she was content to put him off with a bare denial. It is doubtful whether such thoughts even occurred to her, however deep they may have been rooted in her soul; for she was certainly not a woman given to reflection.