“It is you! it is you!” he said hoarsely, and crushing her in his arms, he kissed her heavily on her yielding mouth.
For a moment she rested against him. The music, piercingly sweet, drove away thought. Then she drew herself back, pushing him blindly from her.
“No, no, no!” she gasped, “it is Lady! You are mad--”
“Mad?” he said quickly. “I was never sane till now. When I think of what I had to offer that dear child, when I realize to what a farce of love I was sacrificing her--oh, Alice dearest, you are a woman; you must have known!”
She raised her head; an unquenchable triumph smiled at him.
“I did know!” she cried exultantly. Suddenly her whole expression changed, her head sank again.
“Oh, Lady, my child, my baby!” she moaned, all mother now, and brokenhearted.
“You must never tell her, never!” she panted. “You will forget; you--I will go away--”
“It is you who are mad, Alice,” he said sternly. “Listen to me. For all these weeks it has been your voice I have remembered, your face I have seen in imagination in my house. It is you I have missed from us three--never Lady. It is you I have tried to please and hoped to satisfy--not Lady. Ever since you told me you would not spend the winter with us I have been discontented. Why, Alice, I have never kissed her in my life--as I have kissed you.”
She grew red to the tips of her little ears, and threw him a quick glance that tingled to his fingers' ends.
“You would not have me--oh, my dear, it is not possible!” he cried.
She burst into tears. “I don't know--I don't know!” she sobbed. “It will break her heart! I don't understand her any more; once I could tell what she would think, but not now.”
“Hush! some one is coming,” he warned her, and taking her arm he drew her out through a great gap in the side of the little house, so that they stood hidden by it.
“Then I will tell him to his face what I think of him!” said a young man's voice, angry, determined, but shaking with disappointment. “To hold a girl--”
“He does not hold me--I hold myself!” It was Lady's voice, low and trembling. “It is all my fault, Jack. I bound myself before I knew what--what a different thing it really was. I do love him--I love him dearly, but not--not--No, no; I don't mean what you think--or, if I do, I must not. Jack, I have promised, don't you see? And when I thought that perhaps he didn't care so much, and asked him--oh, I told you how beautifully he answered me, I will never hurt him so, never!”