The Knoxville independent. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1917-04-07
CHAPTER XVII.
Dancer.

6aHSSTs
When she tiptoed into her uncle's
room at midnight, Mans heart beat as
the wings of bird beat from the
broken door of cage into forbidden
sky of happiness. She had left the
room girl; she returned woman.
Sleep she did not expect or even ask
for; the night was all too short to
think of those tense, fearful moments
that had pledged her to her lover.
When the anxieties Of her situation
overwhelmed her, as they would again
and again, she felt herself In the arms
of this strange, resolute man whom all
her own hated and whom she knew she
already loved beyond all power to put
away. In her heart, she had tried this
more than once-she knew she could
not, would not, ever do 1t, or even
try to do it, again.
She rejoiced In his love. She trusted.
when he spoke she believed this man
whom no one around her would be-
lieve; and she, who never had believed
what other men avowed, and who de-
tested their svowals, believed De
Spain, and secretly, guiltily, glowed in
every word OF his devotion and
breathed faint In its every caress.
Night could hardly come fast enough,
after the next long day. A hundred
times during that day she reminded
herself, while the slow. majestic sun
shone simmering on the hot desert
that she had promised to steal out into
the grounds the minute darkness fell
he would be waiting. A hundred times
In the long afternoon Nan looked int
the cloudless western sky and witt
puny, eager hands would have pushed
the tagging orb on its course that sh'
might sooner give herself into thu
arms where she felt her place so sure
her honor safe, her helplessness so pro
tected, herself so loved.
How her cheeks burned after supper
when she asked her uncle for leave Il
post letter DOWNTOWN How breath
less with apprehension she halted as
De Spain stepped from the shadow Of
the trees and drew her approximately
beneath them for the kiss that had
burned on her troubled lips all day
How, girl-like, knowing his caresses
were all her own-knowing she could
at an instant call forth enough to
smother her-she tyrannized his i'm
pOrtuning, and like q lovely miser,
boarded her responsiveness under calm
eye and laconic whispers until, when
she did give back his eagerness, she
made his senses reel.
How dreamily she listened to every
word he let fall In his outpouring of
devotion: how gravely she put up her
hand to restrain his busy intrusion,
and asked If he knew that no man In
the world, least Of all her fierce and
burly cousin, had ever touched her lips
until he himself forced kiss on them
the night before. "And nowl" She
hid her face against his shoulder. "Oh,
Henry, how love you! I'm SO
ashamed couldn't tell you If 1t weren't
night; I'll never look you in the face
again In the daytime"
And when he told her how little he
himself had had to do with, and how
little he knew about girls, even from
boyhood, how she feigned not to be-
lieve, and believed him still They
were two children raised in the magic
of an hour to the supreme height OF
life and dizzy together on its summit
II don't see how you can care for
me, Henry. Oh, mean it." she pro
tested, holding her head resolutely up
"You know who VIC are, away Off there
In the mountains. Everyone hates us
suppose they've plenty Of reason to
we hate everybody else. And why
shouldn't we? We're at war with ev.
eryone. You know, better than I do
what goes on in the gap. don't want
to know; try not to know; Uncle
Duke tries to keep things from me-
that day on Music-I couldn't believe
you meant 1t at all. And yet-Pm
afraid liked to try to think you did
When you looked at me l felt rs Ii
you could see right through me-"
Condolences never came to an end
And diplomacy came into its own al
most at once in De Spain's efforts tt
improve his relations with the impla
cable Duke. The day came when Mans
uncle could be taken home. De Spain
sent to him soft-spoken emissary,
Bob Scott, offering 70 provide a light
stage, with his compliments, for the
trip. The intractable mountaineer
with his refusal to accept the olive
branch, blew Bob QUE of the room.