His voice suddenly broke; he dropped down on the couch beside her, imprisoning her clasped hands on her knees. His emotion, the break in his voice, excited them both.
"Are you trying to frighten me and take me by storm?" she demanded, forcing a smile. "What is the matter, Duane? What do you mean by peril?... You are scaring me----"
"Little Geraldine--my little comrade! Can"t you understand? It isn"t only my selfish desire for you--it isn"t all for myself!--I care more for you than that. I love you more deeply than a mere lover! Must I say more to you? Must I even hurt you? Must I tell you what I know--of you?"
"W-what?" she asked, startled.
He looked at her miserably. In his eyes she read a meaning that terrified her.
"Duane--I don"t--understand," she faltered.
"Yes you do. Let"s face it now!"
"F-face what?" Her voice was only a whisper.
"I can tell you if you"ll love me. Will you?"
"I don"t understand," she repeated in white-lipped distress. "Why do you look at me so strangely? And you tell me that I--know.... What is it that I know? Couldn"t you tell me? I am--" Her voice failed.
"Dear--do you remember--once--last April that you were--ill?... And awoke to find yourself on your own bed?"
"Duane!" It was a cry of terror.
"Dearest! Dearest! Do you think I have not known--since then--what has troubled you--here----"
She stared at him in crimsoned horror for an instant, then with a dry sob, bowed her head and covered her face with desperate hands. For a moment her whole body quivered, then she collapsed. On his knees beside her he bent and touched with trembling lips her arms, her knees, the slim ankles desperately interlocked, the tips of her white shoes.
"Dearest," he whispered brokenly, "I know--I know--believe me. I have fought through worse, and won out. You said once that something had died out in me--while I was abroad. It did not die of itself, dear. But it left its mark.... You say self-control is only depravity afraid.... That is true; but I have made my depravity fear me. I can do what I please with it now; I can tempt it, laugh at it, silence it. But it cost me something to make a slave of it--what you saw in my face is the claw-mark it left fighting me to the death."
Very straight on his knees beside her he bent again, pressing her rigid knees with his lips.
"I need you, Geraldine--I need all that is best in you; you must love me--take me as an ally, dear, against all that is worst in you. I"ll love you so confidently that we"ll kill it--you and I together--my strength and yours, my bitter and deep understanding and your own sweet contempt for weakness wherever it may be, even in yourself."
He touched her; and she shuddered under the light caress, still bent almost double, and covering her face with both hands. He bent over her, one knee on the divan.
"Let"s pull ourselves together and talk sense, Geraldine," he said with an effort at lightness.
"Don"t you remember that bully little girl who swung her fists in single combat and uppercut her brother and me whenever her sense of fairness was outraged? The time has come when you, who were so fair to others, are going to be fair to yourself by marrying me----"
She dropped both hands and stared at him out of wide, tear-wet eyes.
"Fair to myself--at your expense, Duane?"
"What do you mean? I love you."
"Am I to let you--you marry me--knowing--what you know? Is that what you call my sense of fairness?" And, as he attempted to speak:
"Oh, I have thought about it already!--I must have been conscious that this would happen some day--that--that I was capable of caring for you--and it alarmed me----"
"Are you capable of loving me?"
"Duane, you must not ask me that!"
"Tell me!"
But she pushed him back, and they faced each other, her hands remaining on his shoulders. She strove piteously to endure his gaze, flinched, strove to push him from her again--but the slender hands lay limply against him. So they remained, her hands at intervals nervously tightening and relaxing on his shoulders, her tearful breath coming faster, the dark eyes closing, opening, turning from him, toward him, searching, now in his soul, now in her own, her self-command slipping from her.
"It is cowardly in me--if I do it," she said in the ghost of a voice.
"Do what?"
"Let you risk--what I m-might become."
"You little saint!"
"Some saints _were_ depraved at first--weren"t they?" she said without a smile. "Oh, Duane, Duane, to think I could ever be here speaking to you about--about the horror that has happened to me--looking into your face and giving up my dreadful secret to you--laying my very soul naked before you! How can I look at you----"
"Because I love you. Now give me the right to your lips and heart!"
There was a long silence. Then she tried to smile.
"My--my lips? I--thought you took such things--lightly----"
She hesitated, glanced up at him, then began to tremble.
"Duane--if you are in earnest about our--about an engagement--promise me that I may be released if I--think best----"
"Why?"
"I--I might fail----"
"The more need of me. But you can"t fail----"
"Yes, but if I should, dear. Will you release me? I cannot--I will not engage myself to you--unless you promise to let me go if I think it best. You know what my word means. Give it back to me if matters go wrong with me. Will you?"
"But I am going to marry you now!" he said with a short, excited laugh.
"Now!" she repeated, appalled.
"Certainly, to make sure of you. We don"t need a license in this State.
There"s a parson at West Gate Village.... I intend to make sure of you now. You can keep it a secret if you like. When you return to town we can have everything en regle--engagement announced, cards, church wedding, and all that. Meanwhile I"m going to be sure of you."
"W-when?"
"This afternoon."
His excitement thrilled her; a vivid colour surged over neck and brow.