"Sit down," she cried
petulantly, motioning to the fallen log. "You're out of breath, you've
had a long climb." She herself sat down and he followed her example,
encircling her with his arms; a tiny frown showed itself in her forehead
and she bent slightly forward as if to evade his clasp, folding her arms
about her knees.
"Gee! You bet it was a climb," he said, wiping his brow and still
breathing a little hard. "But I'd have climbed right on up to heaven if
you'd been there waiting for me. Lord, Pearl! if I'd had to wait much
longer to see you it would have finished me, I do believe. Oh,
sweetheart, you're lovelier than ever, and you're not going to punish
either of us any more, I can tell you that. You're coming down with me
and we're going to live, Pearl, live, just as I told you we would, down
there in the palms in the desert. Now I'm telling you again among the
pines, and this time you're going to listen and come. I guess we've both
of us pretty well found out that it's no use our trying to live apart
any longer."
Her crimson cloak had fallen from her shoulders, and Hanson, holding her
hand in his, had pushed up her sleeve and was kissing her arm, as he
talked, up as far as her elbow and down again to the tips of her
fingers. She did not even attempt to draw her hand away, she was still
in that state of apathy, where all her senses seemed dulled; and so she
let him babble on, murmuring his adoration and his rose-colored dreams
of the future.
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