"
Some perfect instinct told her that this was the only way of atonement
for her error. He thanked her as if they had been speaking of a
trifling thing.
She rose, holding the manuscript loosely in her clasped hands, and he
half thought that she was going to give it back to him. He took it
from her and threw it on the window-seat, and held her hands together
for an instant in his own. He looked down at them, longing to stoop
and kiss them, but forebore, because of his great love for her, and
let them go. He went out quickly. He had sufficient self-command to
find Kitty and thank her and take his leave.
As the door closed on him Lucia heard herself calling him back, with
what intention she hardly knew, unless it were to return his poems.
"Keith," she said softly--"Keith." But even to her own senses it was
less a name than a sound that began in a sob and ended in a sigh.
Kitty found her standing in the window-place where he had left her.
"Has anything happened?" she asked.
"I asked him to marry me, Kitty, and he wouldn't. That was all."
"Are you sure you did, dear? From the look of him I should have said
it was the other way about."
CHAPTER LXXV
"I don't know what to think of it, Kitty. What do you think?"
"I think you've been playing with fire, dear. With the divine fire.
It's the most dangerous of all, and you've got your little fingers
burnt."
"Like Horace. He once said the burnt critic dreads the divine fire.
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