erstood things then that I never had before, and I
felt that wise guardian man-angel take his fingers from mine and leave
me safe at last. I raised my hand and pressed it against John's wet
lashes until he could let me speak and I was melted into his very breast
itself.

"Molly," he said when enough tenderness had come back into his arms to
let me breathe, "you have almost killed me!"

"You!" I exclaimed, crowding still closer, or at least trying to. "It's
not _you_; it's I that am killed, and you did it! I know you don't
really want me, but I can't help that I'd rather you'd do the suffering
with me than to do it myself away from you. I'm so hungry and thirsty
for you that--that I can't diet any longer!" I put the case the
strongest way I knew how and got a swooning, maddening, luscious result.

"Want you, Molly?" he almost sobbed, and I felt his heart pounding hard
next to my shoulder.

"Yes, want me!" I answered with more spirit than breath left in me. "I
refuse to believe you are as stupid as I am, and anybody with even an
ordinary amount of brains must have seen how hard I was fighting for
you. I feel sure I left no stone unturned. Some of them I can already
think back and see myself tugging at, and it makes me hot all over. I'm
foolish, and always was, so I'm to be excused for acting that awful way,
but you are to blame for _letting_ me do it. I'm going to be your
punishment for life for not having been stern and stopped me. You had
better stop me some now anyway, for if I go on loving you as I have been
for the last few minutes it will make you uncomfortable."

"Peaches," he said, after he had hushed me with another broken dose of
love, as large as he thought I could stand--I could have stood more!--"I
am never going to tell you how long I have loved you, but that day you
came to me all in a flutter with Al Bennett's letter in your hand it is
going to take you a lifetime to settle for. You were mine--and Bill's!
How _could_ you--but women don't understand!" I felt him shudder
in my arms as I held him close. I was repaid for all those tiresome
exercises I had taken by the strength to crush him against my breast
almost as hard as he crushed me. Our combined strength was terrific,
dangerous to life and ribs, but--heavenly!

"Don't women know, John?" I managed to ask softly in memory of a like
question he had put to me across that bread and jam with the rose
a-listening from the dark.

What brought me to cons