Chapter 94
Neeland looked up quickly from his letter; then his face altered, and he rose; but Rue Carew was already on her feet; and she had lost most of her colour--and her presence of mind, too, it seemed, for Neeland's arms were half around her, and her hands were against his shoulders.
Neither of them spoke; and he was already amazed and rather scared at his own incredible daring--already terribly afraid of this slender, fragrant creature who stood rigid and silent within the circle of his arm, her head lowered, her little, resisting hands pressed convulsively against his breast.
And after a long time the pressure against his breast slowly relaxed; her restless fingers moved nervously against his shoulders, picked at the lapels of his coat, clung there as he drew her head against his breast.
The absurd beating of his heart choked him as he stammered her name; he dropped his head beside her hot and half hidden cheek. And, after a long, long time, her face stirred on his breast, turned a very little toward him, and her young lips melted against his.
So they stood through the throbbing silence in the slowly darkening room, while the street outside echoed with the interminable trample of pa.s.sing cavalry, and the dim capital lay like a phantom city under the ghostly lances of the searchlights as though probing all Heaven to the very feet of G.o.d in search of reasons for the h.e.l.lish crime now launched against the guiltless Motherland.
And high among the planets sped the dark star, Erlik, unseen by men, rus.h.i.+ng through viewless interstellar s.p.a.ce, hurled out of nothing by the Prince of h.e.l.l into the nothing toward which all h.e.l.l is speeding, too; and whither it shall one day fade and disappear and pa.s.s away forever.
"My darling----"
"Oh, Jim--I have loved you all my life," she whispered. And her young arms crept up and clung around his neck.
"My darling Rue--my little Rue Carew----"
Outside the window an officer also spoke through
But she heard her lover's voice alone as in a hushed and magic world; and in her girl's enchanted ears his words were the only sounds that stirred a heavenly quiet that reigned between the earth and stars.
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