rms, close, closer; she lifted her face;
he kissed her; and she gave him her heart with a sob.

"You will wait for m-me, won't you?" she stammered, striving to keep her
reason through the delicious tumult that swept her senses. "Before I
m-marry you I must be quite certain that you take no risk----"

She looked up into his steady eyes; a passion of tenderness overwhelmed
her, and her locked arms tightened around his neck.

"Oh," she whispered, "you _are_ the boy I loved so long, so long ago--my
comrade Duane--my own little boy! How was I to know I loved you this
way, too? How could I understand!"

Already the glamour of the past was transfiguring the man for her,
changing him back into the lad she had ruled so long ago, glorifying
him--drawing them together into that golden age where her ears already
caught the far cries and laughter of the past.

Now, her arms around him, she looked at him and looked at him as though
she had not set eyes on him since then.

"Of course, I love you," she said impatiently, as though surprised and
hurt that he or she had ever doubted it. "You always were mine; you are
_mine_! Nobody else could ever have had you--no matter what you did--or
what I did.... And nobody except you could ever, ever have had me. That
is perfectly plain now.... Oh, you--you darling"--she murmured, drawing
his face against hers. Tears sprang to her brown eyes; her mouth
quivered.

"You _will_ love me, won't you? Because I'm going quite mad about you,
Duane.... I don't think I know just what I'm saying--or what I'm doing."

She drew him closer; he caught her, crushing her in his arms, and she
yielded, clung to him for a moment, drew back in flushed resistance,
still bewildered by her own passion. Then, into her eyes came that
divine beauty which comes but once on earth--innocence awakened; and the
white lids drooped a little, and the mouth quivered, surrendering with a
sigh.

* * * * *

"You never have, never could love any other man? Say it. I know it,
but--say it, sweetheart!"

"Only you, Duane."

"Are you happy?"

"I am in heaven."

She closed her eyes--opening them almost immediately and passing one
hand across his face as though afraid he might have vanished.

"You are there yet," she murmured with a faint smile.

"So are you," he whispered, laughing--"my little dream girl--my little
brown-eyed, brown-haired, long-legged, swift-running, hard-hitting----"

"Oh,