I'd
been trying to forget how you looked; now I want to remember
you always. I'd been trying not to hear your voice; now I
never want to hear any other. I've made my choice--that's
all: I've had you and I mean to keep you." Her face was
shining like her eyes. "To keep you hidden away here," she
ended, and put her hand upon her breast.
After she had left him, Darrow continued to sit motionless,
staring back into their past. Hitherto it had lingered on
the edge of his mind in a vague pink blur, like one of the
little rose-leaf clouds that a setting sun drops from its
disk. Now it was a huge looming darkness, through which his
eyes vainly strained. The whole episode was still obscure
to him, save where here and there, as they talked, some
phrase or gesture or intonation of the girl's had lit up a
little spot in the night.
She had said: "I wonder what your feeling for me was?" and
he found himself wondering too...He remembered distinctly
enough that he had not meant the perilous passion--even in
its most transient form--to play a part in their relation.
In that respect his attitude had been above reproach. She
was an unusually original and attractive creature, to whom
he had wanted to give a few days of harmless pleasuring, and
who was alert and expert enough to understand his intention
and spare him the boredom of hesitations and
misinterpretations.
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