THE AMATEUR LOVER
swooping down upon us round the curve had scared all the starch out of your legs? Look out for your head now, honey, and I'll give you a very good imi- tation of a cave man bringing home his bride."
In another moment he had switched a blaze of electric light into his diminutive library, and de- posited his sobbing burden none too formally in the big easy chair that blocked almost all the open space between his desk and his bookcases. "What! Are n't you laughing, too ?" he cried in mock alarm. But the crumpled little figure in the big chair did not answer to his raillery.
Until it seemed as though he would totter from his wavering foothold, Drew stood and watched her dumbly. Then a voice that sounded strange even to himself spoke out of his lips.
"Ruth come here" he said.
She raised her rumpled head in astonishment, gaged for a throbbing instant the new authoritative glint in his eyes, and then slipped cautiously out of her chair and came to him, reeking with despair. For a second they just stood and stared at each other, white face to white face, a map of anger con- fronting a map of fear.
"You understand," said Drew, "that to-day, by every moral, legal, religious right and rite, you have delivered your life over utterly into my hands?"
His voice was like ice.
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