You were a little baby then, and since that
night you have never pleased me more than now!"
He dropped her hand and turned squarely to the door, to hide what he
knew had come into his face. He heard a soft, heart-broken little sob
behind him, and something fell rustling upon his arm.
"Jan, dear Jan!"
Melisse crowded herself into his arms, her hair torn down and tumbling
about her shoulders. In her eyes there were the old pride and the old
love, the love and pride of what seemed to Jan to be, years ago, the
old, childish pleading for his comradeship, for the fun of his strong
arms, the frolic of his laugh. Irresistibly they called to him, and in
the old glad way he tightened his arms about her shoulders, his eyes
glowing, and life leaping back, flushed and full, into his face.
She laughed, happy and trembling, her lips held up to him.
"I didn't please you to-day," she whispered. "I will never do up my
hair again!"
He kissed her, and his arms dropped from her shoulders.
"Never, never again--until you have forgotten to love me," she
repeated. "Good night, Brother Jan!"
Across the open, through the thinned edge of the black spruce, deeper
and deeper into the cold, unquivering lifelessness of the forest, Jan
went from the door that closed between him and Melisse, her last words
still whispering in his ears, the warm touch of her hair on his
cheeks--and the knowledge of what this day had meant for him swiftly
surging upon him, bringing with it a torment which racked him to the
soul.
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