Today
was the day--the stage was set, the curtain about to be lifted, the
play ready to be enacted. But before it was the prologue. And the
prologue was Mary Josephine's.
At the crest of a dip halfway down the slope they had paused, and in
this pause he stood a half-step behind her so that he could look at her
for a moment without being observed. She was bareheaded, and it came
upon him all at once how wonderful was a woman's hair, how beautiful
beyond all other things beautiful and desirable. In twisted, glowing
seductiveness it was piled up on Mary Josephine's head, transformed
into brown and gold glories by the sun. He wanted to put forth his hand
to it, and bury his fingers in it, and feel the thrill and the warmth
and the crush of the palpitant life of it against his own flesh. And
then, bending a little forward, he saw under her long lashes the sheer
joy of life shining in her eyes as she drank in the wonderful panorama
that lay below them to the west. Last night's rain had freshened it,
the sun glorified it now, and the fragrance of earthly smells that rose
up to them from it was the undefiled breath of a thing living and
awake. Even to Keith the river had never looked more beautiful, and
never had his yearnings gone out to it more strongly than in this
moment, to the river and beyond--and to the back of beyond, where the
mountains rose up to meet the blue sky and the river itself was born.
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