Presently he released her hands.
She said "Good-by" calmly enough; he followed her to the door and opened
it, watching her pass through the hall to her own door. And there she
paused and looked back; and he found himself beside her again.
"Only," she began, "only don't do all those beautiful magic things for
any--anybody else--will you? I wish to have--have them all for myself--to
share them with no one----"
He held her hands imprisoned again. "I will never do one of those things
for anybody but you," he said unsteadily.
"Truly?" Her face caught fire.
"Yes, truly."
"But how--how, then, can you--can----"
"I don't care what happens to me!" he said. To look at him nobody would
have thought him young enough to say that sort of thing.
"I care," she said, releasing her hands and stepping back into her
studio.
For a moment her lovely, daring face swam before his eyes; then, in the
next moment, she was in his arms, crying her eyes out against his
shoulder, his lips pressed to her bright hair.
And that was all right in its way, too; madder things have happened in
our times; but nothing madder ever happened than a large, bald gentleman
who came up the stairs in a series of bounces and planted his legs apart
and tightened his pudgy grip upon his malacca walking stick, and
confronted them with distended eyes and waistband.
In vigorous but incoherent English he begged to know whether this scene
was part of an education in art.
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