She permitted it, unresisting, that
strange, thoughtful look still on her face.
"Tell me, do you want me to love you--or don't you care?" he demanded.
For a moment Doris made no answer.
"You're a man," she said then, very softly, a little breathlessly.
"And I'm a woman. I'm blind--but I'm a woman. I've been wondering how
long it would take you to find that out."
CHAPTER IX
Not until Hollister had left Doris at her cousin's home and was
walking back downtown did a complete realization of what he had done
and pledged himself to do burst upon him. When it did, he pulled up
short in his stride, as if he had come physically against some
forthright obstruction. For an instant he felt dazed. Then a consuming
anger flared in him,--anger against the past by which he was still
shackled.
But he refused to be bound by those old chains whose ghostly clanking
arose to harass him in this hour when life seemed to be holding out a
new promise, when he saw happiness beckoning, when he was dreaming of
pleasant things. He leaned over the rail on the Granville Street
drawbridge watching a tug pass through, seeing the dusky shape of the
small vessel, hearing the ripple of the flood tide against the stone
piers, and scarcely conscious of the bridge or the ship or the gray
dimness of the sea, so profound was the concentration of his mind on
this problem.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142