Waltz Into Darkness Read Online Free PDF

relented. "But since I paid
no attention whatever to the passages in your letters that dealt with
that, in the first place, why, you're asking forgiveness for a fault
I was not aware, until now, of your having committed. Take it, then,
though I'm not sure what it's for."
    He
stared at her with a new intentness, that went deeper than before; as
if finding her as utterly charming within as she was at first sight
without.
    Their
shadows were growing longer, and they were all but alone now on the
pier. He glanced around him as if reluctantly awakening to their
surroundings. "It's getting late, and I'm keeping you standing
here," he said in a reminder that was more dutiful than honest,
for it might mean their separation, for all he knew.
    "You
make me forget the time," she admitted, her eyes never leaving
his face. "Is that a bad omen or a good? You even make me forget
my predicament: half ashore and half still on the boat. I must soon
become the one or the other."
    "That's
soon taken care of," he said, leaning forward eagerly, "if
I have your own consent."
    "Isn't
yours necessary too ?" she said archly.
    "It's
given, it's given." 'He was almost breathless with haste to
convince her.
    She
was in no hurry, now that he was. "I don't know," she said,
lifting the point of her parasol, then dropping it again, then
lifting it once more, in an uncertainty that he found excruciating.
"If you had not seemed satisfied, if you had looked askance at
the deceiver that you found me to be, I intended going back onto the
boat and remaining aboard till she set out on the return trip to St.
Louis. Don't you think that might still be the wiser--"
    "No,
don't say that," he urged, alarmed. "Satisfied? I'm the
happiest man in New Orleans this evening--I'm the luckiest man in
this town--"
    She
was not, it seemed, to be swayed so easily. "There is still
time. Better now than later. Are you quite sure you wouldn't rather
have me do that? I won't say a word, I won't complain. I'll
understand your feelings perfectly--"
    He
was gripped by a sudden new fear of losing her. She, whom he hadn't
had at all until scarcely half an hour ago.
    "But
those aren't my feelings! I beg you to believe me! My feelings are
quite the opposite. What can I do to convince you? Do you want more
time? Is it you? Is that what you are trying to say to me ?" he
insisted with growing anxiety.
    She
held him for a moment with her eyes, and they were kindly and candid
and even, one might have said, somewhat tender. Then she shook her
head, very slightly it is true, 'but with all the firmness of
intention that a man might have given the gesture (if he could read
it right), and not a girl's facile undependable negation.
    "My
mind has been made up," she told him, slowly and simply, "since
I first stepped onto the boat at St. Louis. Since your letter of
proposal came, as a matter of fact, and I wrote you my answer. And I
do not lightly undo my mind, once it has been made up. You will find
that once you know me better." Then she qualified it: "If
you do," and let that find him out with a little unwelcome stab,
as it promptly did.
    "I'll
let this be my answer, then," he said with tremulous impatience.
"Here it is." He opened his cardcase, took out the
daguerrotype, the one of the other, older woman--her aunt's-minced it
with energetic fingers, then let it fall in trifling pieces downward
all over the ground. Then showed her both his hands, empty.
    "My
mind is made up too."
    She
smiled her acceptance. "Then--?"
    "Then
let's be on our way. They're waiting for us at the church the past
quarter-hour or more. We've delayed here too long."
    He
tilted his arm akimbo, offered it to her with a smile and a gallant
inclination from the waist, that were perhaps, on the surface, meant
to appear as badinage, merely a bantering parody, but were in reality
more sincerely intended.
    "Miss
Julia?" he invited.
    This
was the moment of ultimate romance, its quintessence. The betrothal.
    She
shifted her parasol to