He managed to get her to one of the tent-poles, and placed her with her
back to it. Then he set one of his own hands against it over her head,
braced himself and stood, keeping a little space about her, ruggedly
letting the crowd surge against him as it would; no one should touch her
in rough carelessness.
"Thank you. It was rather trying in there," she said, and looked up into
his eyes with a divine gratitude.
"Please don't do that," he answered in a low voice.
"Do what?"
"Look like that."
She not only looked like that, but more so. "Young man, young man," she
said, "I fear you're wishful of turning a girl's head."
The throng was thick around them, garrulous and noisy, but they two were
more richly alone together, to his appreciation, than if they stood on
some far satellite of Mars. He was not to forget that moment, and he kept
the picture of her, as she leaned against the big blue tent-pole, there,
in his heart: the clear gray eyes lifted to his, the delicate face with
the color stealing back to her cheeks, and the brave little figure that
had run so straight to him out of the night shadows. There was
something about her, and in the moment, that suddenly touched him with a
saddening sweetness too keen to be borne; the forget-me-not finger of the
flying hour that could not come again was laid on his soul, and he felt
the tears start from his heart on their journey to his eyes.
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