suddenly, she laid her hand on his arm. It trembled violently under her
touch. "And, oh, boy," she broke out, with a voice of pent-up vibrance,
"don't you see how I want to listen to you?"

He bent forward until he was very close, and his tone was almost fierce
in its tense eagerness.

"You want to! Why?"

Again a tremor seized her, then with the sudden abandon of one who
surrenders to an impulse stronger than one's self, she leaned forward
and placed a hand on each of his shoulders, clutching him almost wildly.
Her eyes glowed close to his own.

"Because I love you, too," she said. Then, with a break in her voice:
"Oh, you knew that! Why did you make me say it?"

While the stars seemed to break out in a chorus above him, he found his
arms about her, and was vaguely conscious that his lips were smothering
some words her lips were trying to shape. Words seemed to him just then
so superfluous.

There was a tumult of pounding pulses in his veins, responsive to the
fluttering heart which beat back of a crushed rose in the lithe being he
held in his arms. Then he obeyed the pressure of the hands on his
shoulders and released her.

"Why should you find it so hard to say?" He asked.

She sat for a moment with her hands covering her face.