"What good would that do?"
There was a despair of him in her voice. He reached her hand in the darkness, as if to hold her to the friendly sympathy of the past few days. "Don't—don't"
"But, Don," she whispered, coming as if unconsciously to the arm that supported her, "what are we to do? I know I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you." Her hand was on his shoulder; he held her like a lover. "We must be practical. We can't"
"I will," he choked. "I'll think of something. Don't let her take you away. I couldn't live here now, without you. I"
There was the rustle of a stealthy movement on the landing below them. She tried to draw back. He held her to a hurried "Good-night" and the kiss that accompanied it. He felt her relax in his arms. "Good-night," she whispered, warm against his cheek—and immediately she was gone.
He fumbled his way upstairs to his room, in the blind darkness, mechanically, every conscious faculty of his mind still entangled, bewildered, enraptured by the transport and sudden ecstasy of that caress.
VIII
The thought with which he awoke in the morning was the resolve to which he had held himself as he fell asleep overnight: that he must do something decisive at once. He had no time to lose; her mother might arrive at any moment; they must be prepared with a plan of action to meet her.
