292
FLAMING YOUTH
find genius you have to think of it and cherish it above everything.” “Above love?” said Pat. She understood enough of ‘this pure passion to be a little daunted. “Above everything,” reaffirmed the other. “You needn*t be afraid. He doesn’t want to marry me.”
“Whether he does or not, it’s a dangerous fascination for both of you.”
Vacillating days followed for Pat.
There was a week
in which she did not trust herself to see Leo.
He tele-
phoned and wrote frantically. She did not answer his letters. But one day she met him fortuitously on the street, and went to the studio with him.
There he broke
all bounds, poured out the fire of his heart upon her: he loved her, wanted her, needed her; she was part of his genius, without her he could never reach his full artistic stature. She loved him, too; he felt it; he knew it; he
defied her to deny it, and she found that, under the com-
pulsion of his presence, she could not.
He was going to
Boston on the following day, for a week. Would she come and join him, if only fora day? She could make up some tale for her family; pretend to be staying with a friend. And he would take her to a great singing-master, the greatest, a friend of his whom he wanted to hear and try
her voice. Wouldn’t she trust herself to him and come? Pat denied him vehemently. But she was stirred and troubled to her own passionate depths by his stormy yet controlled passion. He had not so much as touched her hand. In the hallway, as they went out, she turned to him and yielded herself into his arms. “Oh, well!” she murmured, her voice fluttering in her
