Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-05-01
CHAPTER VIII
A THEE IN TILE NIGHT

ghe sat beside the wide window OF hel
bedchamber. on that third midnight al
Gosnold House, in state of lawless
exaltation not less physical than spiritual
and mental, temper that prescribed
sleep hopelessly.
The window was open, the night air
still and suave and warm, her sole pro-
lection a filmy negligee over a night
dress of sheerest silk and lace. And II
that hour Sarah Manvers was as nearly
a beautiful woman as ever she was to
be--her face family flushed in the stark
moonlight family shadowed from within
by the rich darkness of her blood, her
dreaming eyes twin pools of llmpd
shadow, her dark lips shadowed by n
little elusive smile.
She was relishing the sensationsof life
intensely, almost painfully; she was in
tensely alive for the first time in all
her life. II seemed; in throat and wrists
and temples pulses sang, now soft, now
loud; and all her body glowed from
crown of head to tips of toes nesting in
silken mules, with the warmth and the
lanRuor of life
She was deeply and desperately in love.
The genius of her curious destiny. not
content with making her free of all the
good material things of life, had granted
her as well this last and dearest boon.
And though her years were twenty-seven,
sho had not loved before. She had
dreamed of love, had been in love with
love and with being loved had believed
she loved; but nothing in her experience
compared with such rapture tonight
obsessed her being, wholly and without
respite.
Life, indeed. grants no compensation
for the ignominious necessity of love than
this, that no other love was ever real
but today's alone.
And so the beauty of that moonlight
midnight seemed supernal. Becalmed. the
island lay stepped in floods of Ethereal
silver. its sky an iridiscent dome. is
sea a shimmering shield of opalescence,
its lawns and terraces argentine shad-
owed with deepest violet. There was
never n definite sound, only the slbilance
of stiffness made of many interwoven
sounds, soft lisp OF wavelets on the sands
hundred feet below, hum of nocturnal
insect life In thickets and plantations,
sobbing of q tiny, vagrant breeze lost
and homeless in that vast serenity. wall
ing or far violin, rumor of a distant
motorcar. night of potent witchery,
woman willingly bewitched.
In fancy she still could feel the plusng
OF her heart against her bosom, the
hutter of his breath in her hair and upon
her cheek, as in that last dance; and
with an inexpressible hunger at once OF
nesh and soul she yearned to feel them
all again, TO be once more within the
magic circle of his arms, to live once
more in the light OF his countenance.
. II mattered nothing that she loved |
hopelessly a graceless runagate - and |
knew 1t we'll. She had not needed the |
indirect warning of Adele Standlsh and
mercedes Pride that the man was moth
ing better than an engaging scamp Who
was she TO demand worthier object for
her love2 She was precisely nobody, and
might waste her passion as she would
and none but herself the worse for IT.
Nor did II matter that her love was
desperate OF return. She know that ne
recognized and was a little amused and a
little nattered by her unspoken admIra-
ton, but more deeply than that affected
not at all. But that was his imperiaI
prerogative; she did not mind temporar-
lily she believed herself quite content.
and that she would continue so as long
as permitted to hug TO her secret heat
the unutterable sweetness of being in
love with him. Again, she was nobody
and didn't count. while he was preciseIv
All that she had lOnged for ever since
she was OF an age 10 dream of love.
he was not only of an admiring person.
he wore the habit of distinction like a
garment made for him alone In short
me man was irresistible, and the woman
aidnt even want to resist, but only de-
spared OF opportunity ever to capitulate.
one was as love-sick as a schoolgirl of
10 hundred times, If once. her barely