Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/108

98 tryst. She and her sailor friend always went to the same place of amusement, met at the same hour, at the same spot; always spent the same silent two hours and a half, side by side, in the dim intimate atmosphere of the crowded theater.

There was something persuasive, irresistibly luring, to Reba, about those long quiet periods of speechless communion with the big strange man of the sea. Afterward, always as on the first night, she felt as if she had been to a region remote and secluded, a region in which she was groping along a winding path—a beguiling path, too, leading she knew not whither. Whenever he did speak, his voice paid homage; whenever he did look at her, which as time went on was less and less frequent, his eyes worshiped.

She was aware of the crudeness of his exterior. Aunt Augusta would have spurned him at sight, as a creature who belonged to a lower strata of society; if not actually a foreigner, anyhow, alien to one of Reba's bringing up, and no one for her to hold conversation with. The fact was, Reba didn't hold much conversation with him. There seemed to be little opportunity for speech between them—only the short walk of a half-dozen blocks or so after the performance; and words somehow were out of place after the enthralling experience of a speechless two hours and a half side by side.

It was probably this feature of silence that deepened the intimacy between Reba and Nathaniel Cawthorne. The conventionalities of speech would have increased the self-consciousness of both of them, and frightened off all spontaneous impulses. The unsophisticated sailor did nothing to frighten Reba. In spite of his