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They rarely troubled to take them off. While waiting avidly for dinner to be served they struck matches and lighted cigarettes and cigars. Sometimes they called in to Maxine, "Say, girlie, when'll supper be ready? I'm 'bout gone." The women trotted upstairs, chattering, and primped and fussed in Maxine's neat and austere little bedroom.
It would be quite simple." The hot color scorched Maxine's face; she rose quickly. "Jacqueline! I had not expected this!" "Madame desired me to speak from the heart. The heart, at times, is unruly!" "True! Forgive me. But you should not suggest a thing that you know to be impossible." "Pardon, madame! I was thinking of the many impossibilities performed in a good cause!" "Say no more, Jacqueline!
"The gods know best!" she said, but as she raised her glass, her hand, also, trembled. But Blake ignored her perturbation, as she ignored his. The coming ordeal lay stark across their path, but neither would look upon it, neither would see beyond the tip of Maxine's cigarette the tiny beacon, consuming even as it gave light!
Instinctively he attempted to rise, but, as before, Maxine's hands were laid upon his shoulders, pressing him back into his seat. He saw her hands in the starlight saw the glint of his own ring. "Ned!" "Dear one?" "It is dim, here in this room, but you know me? Your soul sees me?" Her voice was shaking, her words sobbed like notes upon an instrument strung to breaking pitch. "My dear one!
The words cried for response, and by a supreme effort she summoned her voice from some far region. "Good-bye!" He did not kiss her hand again, but bending his head, he solemnly kissed his own ring, lying cold upon her finger. All was finished. Mystery was at an end. The pilgrim's staff had been placed in Maxine's hand, her feet set toward the great white road.
Real terror leaped into Milly Pardee's eyes. "Not Oklahoma. Sam, I couldn't stand " Suddenly she stiffened with resolve. Maxine's report card had boasted three stars that week. Oklahoma! Why, there probably were no schools at all in Oklahoma. "I won't bring my child up in Oklahoma. Indians, that's what! Scalped in our beds." Above Sam Pardee's roar sounded Maxine's excited treble. "Oo, Oklahoma!
A door opened and shut. There was dead silence, except for a footfall overhead, which sounded heavier than Maxine's. Perhaps it was her maid's. For a few seconds more I stood still, awaiting developments, but there was no sound in the next room, and I decided to take my chance before it should be too late.
They spoke little; Maxine's thoughts skimmed lightly over the future, her hands lay lightly in her fiancé's. All was unemotional all was smooth and undisturbed until they reached the street where her house stood; then, with the swiftness that belongs to mad moments, the being beside her showed himself.
In this affair of the woman, I know exactly where I stand." The girl made no comment; but even to Maxine's own ears, her declaration left a little suggestion of over-vehemence vibrating in the air; and startled by this suggestion, she did the least wise, the most human thing possible, she accentuated it.
There's that in my defence only that." "I don't understand," I said, trying not to show the horror of Maxine's treachery to a man who loved and trusted her, which I could not help feeling. "How could you? except that I've betrayed him! But I'll tell you everything I'll go back a long way. Then you'll pity me, even if you scorn me, too. You'll work for me to save me, and him.
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