Silence.

"Kitty, I came out of a dark world--to find you. I loved you the moment

I entered your kitchen that night. But I did not know it. I loved you

the night you brought the wallet. Still I did not understand. It

was when I heard the lift door and knew you had gone forever that I

understood. Loved you with all my heart, with all that poor old Stefani

had fashioned out of muck and clay. If you held my head to your heart,

if that is my blood there--Do you, can you care a little?"

"I can and do care very much, Johnny."

Her voice to his ears was like the G string of the Amati. "Will you go

with me?"

"Anywhere. But you are a prince of some great Russian house, Johnny, and

I am nobody."

"What am I, Kitty? Less than nobody--a homeless outcast, with only you

and Cutty. An American! Well, when I'm that it will be different; I'll

be somebody. God forgive me if I do not give it absolute loyalty, this

new country!... Never call me anything but Johnny."

"Johnny." Anywhere, whatever he willed her to be.

"I'm a child, Kitty. I want to grow up--if I can--to be an American,

something like that ripping old thoroughbred yonder."

Cutty! Johnny wanted to be something like Cutty. Johnny would have to

grow up to be his own true self; for nobody could ever be like Cutty. He

was as high and far away from the average man as this apartment was from

hers. Would he understand her attitude? Could she say anything until it

would be too late for him to interfere? She was this man's woman. She

would have her span of happiness, come ill, come good, even if it

hurt Cutty, whom she loved in another fashion. But for Johnny dropping

through that trap she might never have really known, married Cutty, and

been happy. Happy until one or the other died; never gloriously, never

furiously, but mildly happy; perhaps understanding each other far better

than Johnny and she would understand each other. The average woman's

lot. But to give her heart, her mind, her body in a whirlwind of

emotions, absolute surrender, to know for once the highest state of

exaltation--to love!

All this tender exchange with half a dozen feet between them. Kitty had

not stirred from the far side of the tea cart, and he had not opened his

arms. She had given herself with magnificent abandon; for the present

that satisfied her instincts. As for him, he was not quite sure this

miracle might not be a dream, and one false move might cause her to

vanish.




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