What he saw there for
an instant made his heart stop beating. She apparently did not
know it, for she began to tremble too.
"Is he not?" said Guest, in a low voice.
"Do you think he ought to be?" she found herself whispering.
A sudden silence fell upon them. The voices of their companions
seemed very far in the distance; the warm breath of the flowers
appeared to be drowning their senses; they tried to speak, but
could not; they were so near to each other that the two long blades
of a palm served to hide them. In the midst of this profound
silence a voice that was like and yet unlike Maruja's said twice,
"Go! go!" but each time seemed hushed in the stifling silence. The
next moment the palms were pushed aside, the dark figure of a young
man slipped like some lithe animal through the shrubbery, and
Maruja found herself standing, pale and rigid, in the middle of the
walk, in the full glare of the light, and looking down the corridor
toward her approaching companions. She was furious and frightened;
she was triumphant and trembling; without thought, sense, or
reason, she had been kissed by Henry Guest, and--had returned it.
The fleetest horses of Aladdin's stud that night could not carry
her far enough or fast enough to take her away from that moment,
that scene, and that sensation. Wise and experienced, confident in
her beauty, secure in her selfishness, strong over others'
weaknesses, weighing accurately the deeds and words of men and
women, recognizing all there was in position and tradition, seeing
with her father's clear eyes the practical meaning of any
divergence from that conventionality which as a woman of the world
she valued, she returned again and again to the trembling joy of
that intoxicating moment.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143