And amidst all the still May greenness, under the shelter of the tender shrubs, he caught the startled girl to him, kissed her and buried his face in the glory of her hair, which his "brother" had stroked and the perfume of whose young life intoxicated him. "Into thy hands, O Lord ...!" he almost sobbed.
She had fallen suddenly into such a storm of hot caresses that her breath failed her as if a hailstorm were beating down on her. She pushed him away, and at the same time nestled closer to him.
"Do you love me, then? Do you love me?" she asked him, trembling and shaken.
"Do I love you? For heaven's sake, would not any one love anything so young and wonderful when he sees it and feels it? What do you think? Skin and hair with the scent of May in them!"
She freed herself from his arms and walked silently by his side for a little way. "Do you love me?" she asked again, as shaken and distraught as he was. "Do you know me? Do you know what I want in life?"
She wanted to speak, she tried--tried--tried, but her excitement was too great. "Do you wish to be my friend?" she said at last, anxiously.
"Will you teach me how to think? I want to be as much alive as you are."
"Silly child!" He would have taken her in his arms again; but she kept him off with passionate refusal.
"I love you because you are different from the others, and so that you may speak to me as to a friend, as to a human being."
"I don't want to live my life asleep all the time, do you hear?"
"What a strange little woman-thing you are! There's a time for kissing, and a time for everything, you babe!"
"Life is what I long for!" she cried, trembling with the uncertainty of what it was she wanted.
"No, no! To understand--that is life. If I join my life to yours, I want to be alive, and not dead and dumb as my mother was."
"You have queer notions. Do you suppose, then, that people can learn how to think as they learn any other trade f I tell you, what you've got to do is to love life--I'll make it my business to see that you love it!"
"I shouldn't like to be cast off," she said with a kind of bitterness, "when you thought I was no longer beautiful. I should run away from you if you deceived me and were no longer my friend."