Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/215

 to say what might have happened. He stood holding Lily close to him, kissing with a strange, awed gentleness the white line of her bare throat.

He discovered presently that she was sobbing. . . . Lily, who never wept. It was a terrible sound as if, all at once, she had sensed the tragedy of a whole lifetime, as if she stood in a vast and barren plain surrounded only by loneliness.

Krylenko's hands and arms became unaccountably gentle. His cheek brushed against her white forehead with a comforting, caressing motion. And presently he lifted her as easily and as gently as he had lifted the wounded striker at Mrs. Tolliver's command, and bore her from the room and down the dark corridor. She lay quietly, still sobbing in the same heartbroken fashion.

Thus he carried her into the long drawing-room and placed her among the brocade cushions of the divan, her amber hair all disheveled, her eyes bright with tears. For a moment he stood by her side awkwardly, silent and incoherent, overwhelmed by some new and profound emotion. The fire of cannel coal had died down. In the grate there was nothing now but ashes. Silently he knelt beside the sofa and rested his blond head on her breasts. Neither of them spoke a word, but Lily's hand returned once more to the old gentle caressing motion across his tired eyes.

The minutes slipped away, one by one in a quick stream as if they were no more than the trickle of a clear spring water which is beyond all peril of drought, as if time itself were nothing and eternity even less.

So engulfed were they by the mood that even the sound of a key turning distantly in a clumsy lock and the echo of a light footfall in the hallway failed to disturb them. They were, it seemed oblivious to everything until suddenly there stepped through the doorway the thin figure of Irene in the worn gray suit and battered black hat. At the sight of them she halted, an apparition with a tired white face, drawn and quivering. It was not until she gave a low convulsive cry that Lily and Krylenko discovered she was watching them. Krylenko remained on his knees, only straightening his body to look at her.