Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/186

 bee and flung it away. He twisted his fine, bright arm, peering awkwardly over his shoulder.

“What is it?” asked Hilda.

“A bee—crawled up my sleeve,” he answered.

“Come here to me,” she said.

The keeper went to her, like a sulky boy. She took his arm in her hands.

“Here it is—and the sting left in—poor bee!”

She picked out the sting, put her mouth to his arm, and sucked away the drop of poison. As she looked at the red mark her mouth had made, and at his arm, she said, laughing:

“That is the reddest kiss you will ever have.”

When Syson next looked up, at the sound of voices, he saw in the shadow the keeper with his mouth on the throat of his beloved, whose head was thrown back, and whose hair had fallen, so that one rough rope of dark brown hair hung across his bare arm.

“No,” the woman answered. “I am not upset because he’s gone. You won’t understand. ”

Syson could not distinguish what the man said. Hilda replied, clear and distinct:

“You know I love you. He has gone quite out of my life—don’t trouble about him. ” He kissed her, murmuring. She laughed hollowly.

“Yes,” she said, indulgent. “We will be married, we will be married. But not just yet.” He spoke to her again. Syson heard nothing for a time. Then she said:

“You must go home, now, dear—you will get no sleep.”

Again was heard the murmur of the keeper’s voice, troubled by fear and passion.