She said, aloud: "But I did not, after all, speak to Lord
Pevensey concerning the printing of your poem. Instead, I burned your
'Hero and Leander'."
She saw him jump, as under a whip-lash. Then he smiled again, in that
wry fashion of his. "I lament the loss to letters, for it was my only
copy. But you knew that."
"Yes, Kit, I knew it was your only copy."
"Oho! and for what reason did you burn it, may one ask?"
"I thought you loved it more than you loved me. It was my rival, I
thought--" The girl was conscious of remorse, and yet it was remorse
commingled with a mounting joy.
"And so you thought a jingle scribbled upon a bit of paper could be
your rival with me!"
Then Cynthia no longer doubted, but gave a joyous little sobbing laugh,
for the love of her disreputable dear poet was sustaining the stringent
testing she had devised. She touched his freckled hand caressingly, and
her face was as no man had ever seen it, and her voice, too, caressed
him.
"Ah, you have made me the happiest of women, Kit! Kit, I am almost
disappointed in you, though, that you do not grieve more for the loss of
that beautiful poem."
His smiling did not waver; yet the lean, red-haired man stayed
motionless. "Do I appear perturbed?" he said. "Why, but see how lightly
I take the destruction of my life-work in this, my masterpiece! For I
can assure you it was a masterpiece, the fruit of two years' toil and of
much loving repolishment--"
"Ah, but you love me better than such matters, do you not?" she asked
him, tenderly.
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