f fascinated. She could
feel his arm so gently about her shoulder, and his breast against hers;
and she loved him with all her heart. She had at this time no thought of
home; only the thought that they loved each other and that Keith would
be away for three months; facing dangers indeed, but all the time loving
her. She thought of the future, of that time when they both would be
free, when they should no longer be checked and bounded by the fear of
not having enough food. That was the thing, Jenny felt, that kept poor
people in dread of the consequences of their own acts. And Jenny felt
that if they might live apart from the busy world, enduring together
whatever ills might come to them from their unsophisticated mode of
life, they would be able to be happy. She thought that Keith would have
no temptations that she did not share; no other men drawing him by
imitativeness this way and that, out of the true order of his own
character; no employer exacting in return for the weekly wage a
servitude that was far from the blessed ideal of service. Jenny thought
these things very simply--impulsively--and not in a form to be
intelligible if set down as they occurred to her; but the notions swam
in her head along with her love for Keith and her joy in the love which
he returned. She saw his dear face so close to her own, and heard her
own heart thumping vehemently, quicker and quicker, so that it sounded
thunderously in her ears. She could see Keith's eyes, so easily to be
read, showing out the impulses that crossed and possessed his mind. Love
for her she was sure she read, love and kindness for her, and
mystification, and curiosity, and the hot slumbering desire for her that
made his breathing short and heavy. In a dream she thought of these
things, and in a dream she felt her own love for Keith rising and
stifling her, so that she could not speak, but could only rest there in
his arms, watching that beloved face and storing her memory with its
precious betrayals.

Keith gently kissed her, and Jenny trembled. A thousand temptations were
whirling in her mind--thoughts of his absence, their marriage, memory,
her love... With an effort she raised her lips again to his, kissing him
in passion, so that when he as passionately responded it seemed as
though she fainted in his arms and lost all consciousness but that of
her love and confidence in him and the eager desire of her nature to
yield itself where love was given.

CHA