Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/243

 "Oh, it's so—so good just to be with you—you!" she was crying spontaneously, as they turned in beneath the jagged arms of the storm-beaten old cedar, with the sun letting himself down into the western haze—the peering, knowing sun. Here, with the windows of the car wide, the drone of wind in boughs above, a murmur in that wide lip of sea-foam before them, with the invigorating bite of salt air and the freshening breeze in their nostrils, they saw and heard and inhaled and forgot. Love was having its hour.

Never had kisses been so tender, so clinging, so electrifying. Passion mounted to its peak and passed, but love flowed on in still deep water. Soft looks, languorous caresses, sighs, heart-throbs, little bursts of silly lovers' laughter; and then more striving to compass all sweet ecstasy in a single caress, a single long-drawn, slow-mounting embrace. Raptures! Transports!

Little nothings Billie whispered in Henry's ear. She played with his hair, she dwelt with velvet lips upon his gray, love-filled eyes. "Oh, how—how wonderful you are!" she sighed. Her hat had fallen off, her hair was disarranged, she hung upon his shoulder, re-observing fondly every detail of his lean, chiseled face.

Henry lay back upon the cushioned seat, eyes half-closed, dimly conscious of the world outside, but keenly conscious of the universe within the circle of his arms. He had yielded to a lassitude, but it was a delicious lassitude until there stole in upon it, like an assassin in the night, a thought.

And with the thought obtruded a sense of cruel separation, as of some strong jealous hand thrust into the car and prying their warm, attracted bodies apart.