"
She blinked as though to clear her eyes and then met his stare again.
"You know you are beautiful, Sally."
"With a pug nose--freckles--and all that?"
"Just a tip-tilt in the nose, Sally. Why, it's charming. And you have
everything else--young, strong, graceful, clear."
"What d'you mean by that?"
"Clear? Fresh and colourful like the sunset over the desert. Do you
understand?"
Her eyes went down to consider.
"I s'pose I do."
"With a touch of awe in it, because the silence and the night are
coming, and the stars walk down, one by one--one by one. And the wind is
low, soft, musical, whispering, as you do now--What if this were not a
game of suppose, Sally?"
She wrenched herself suddenly away, rising.
"I'm tired of supposing!" she cried.
"Then we'll call it all real. What of that?"
That colour was unmistakably high now; it ran down from her cheeks and
even stained the pure white of the throat where the flap of the shirt
was open. He was excited as a hunter who has tracked some new and
dangerous animal and at last driven it to bay, holding his gun poised,
and not knowing whether or not it will prove vulnerable.
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