He
folded his arms and stood silent, waiting, and ready to judge the time
as nearly as he could until the five minutes should have elapsed. He
was so busy computing the minutes that it was with a start that he
noticed some time later that the weeping had ceased. She lay quiet.
Her hand was dabbing furtively at her face for a purpose which Pierre
could not surmise.
At last a broken voice murmured: "Pierre!"
He would not speak, but something in the voice made his anger go.
After a little it came, and louder this time: "Pierre?"
He did not stir.
She whirled and sat on the edge of the bunk, crying: "Pierre!" with a
note of fright.
Still he persisted in that silence, his arms folded, the keen blue
eyes considering her as if from a great distance.
She explained: "I was afraid--Pierre! Why don't you speak? Tell me,
are you angry?"
And she sprang up and made a pace toward him. She had never seemed so
little manlike, so wholly womanly. And the hand which stretched toward
him, palm up, was a symbol of everything new and strange that he
found in her.
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