If he saw them--and they ran down my cheek in spite of me--he
mercifully gave no sign. Instead he held out his fine brown hand,
and when I placed mine in it, he lifted it to his lips with foreign
grace.
"We two are friends, then--through thick and thin, above doubting,
and without fear or reproach. That is so, _hein_?"
"Yes!" I promised.
So, walking slowly, as if loath to go, we two went out of the
Enchanted Wood and left the Forest of Arden behind us.
When I was again in my own room, and had taken off the brown frock,
I held against my cheek, for a long, long minute, that fold against
which his head had rested; I fingered the broken coin; I looked long
and long at the hand his lips had touched; and though I had told a
shameless lie, I was not at all ashamed.
I have often read that women do not and cannot love men, but only
love to be loved by them. Only a man could have been stupid enough
to say that; and, then he didn't know. The woman hadn't told him.
"I say! Haven't you got on a new frock to-night? My word, it's
scrumptious!" remarked The Author, after dinner. I was wearing a
black-and-blue frock, and he had seen it before, as I explained with
some surprise.
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