Chapter 14

She paused, and Lee, half-anticipating what was coming, did nothing to help her, save to girdle and press her hand in his.

“Sonny rather lost his . . . his head over me,” she faltered. “Of course, you must have noticed it. And . . . and last night, he wanted me to run away with him. Which isn’t my confession at all . . . ”

Still Lee Barton waited.

“My confession,” she resumed, “is that I wasn’t the least bit angry with him—only sorrowful and regretful. My confession is that I rather slightly, only rather more than slightly, lost my own head. That was why I was kind and gentle to him last night. I am no fool. I knew it was due. And—oh, I know, I’m just a feeble female of vanity compounded—I was proud to have such a man swept off his feet by me, by little me. I encouraged him. I have no excuse. Last night would not have happened had I not encouraged him. And I, and not he, was the sinner last night when he asked me. And I told him no, impossible, as you should know why without my repeating it to you. And I was maternal to him, very much maternal. I let him take me in his arms, let myself rest against him, and, for the first time because it was to be the for-ever last time, let him kiss me and let myself kiss him. You . . . I know you understand . . . it was his renunciation. And I didn’t love Sonny. I don’t love him. I have loved you, and you only, all the time.”

She waited, and felt her husband’s arm pass around her shoulder and under her own arm, and yielded to his drawing down of her to him.

“You did have me worried more than a bit,” he admitted, “until I was afraid I was going to lose you. And . . . ” He broke off in patent embarrassment, then gripped the idea courageously. “Oh, well, you know you’re my one woman. Enough said.”

She fumbled the match-box from his pocket and struck a match to enable him to light his long-extinct cigar.

“Well,” he said, as the smoke curled about them, “knowing you as _I_ know you, and _all_ of you, all I can say is that I’m sorry for Sonny for what he’s missed—awfully sorry for him, but equally glad for me. And . . . one other thing: five years hence I’ve something to tell you, something rich, something ridiculously rich, and all about me and the foolishness of me over you. Five years. Is it a date?”

“I shall keep it if it is fifty years,” she sighed, as she nestled closer to him.

GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA. _August_ 17, 1916.

FOOTNOTES

{107} See Dibble’s “_A History of the Sandwich Islands_.”