One thing only made me recall my real position.
That was when your eyes turned on mine - your true eyes, so bright
with confidence and pride. I wanted to meet them full, and when I
could not, I suddenly knew why, and suffered.
"Do you remember the night when we stood together on the balcony
at the Ocean View House and you laid your hand on my arm and
wondered why I persisted in looking at the moon instead of into
your expectant face? It was because the music then being played
within recalled another night and the pressure of another hand on
my arm - a hand whose touch I hoped never to feel again, but which
at that moment was so much more palpable than yours that I came
near screaming aloud and telling you in one rush of maddened
emotion my whole abominable secret.
"I did not accept your attentions nor agree to marry you, without
a struggle. You know that. You can tell, as no one else can, how
I held back and asked for time and still for time, thus grieving
you and tearing my own breast till a day came - you remember the
day when you found me laughing like a mad woman in a circle of
astonished friends? You drew me aside and said words which I
hardly waited for you to finish, for at last I was free to love
you, free to love and free to say so. The morning paper had brought
news.
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