...
"Sit down where you were. I wish to show that I trust you both....
"Good-night, Hildreth!" and he kissed his wife in fond contrition.
"Good-night, Johnnie ... forgive me!"
And he wavered out at the door, his face set in pain.
* * * * *
As soon as he had gone I rose swiftly.
"And now I must go."
"If you men aren't the funniest things!" she caught me by the hand,
detaining me ... "not yet ... wait a minute. Read more of that poem you
began, if only for a blind."
I picked up the book, started reading again ... strangely a rush of
tears flooded my eyes and blurred the type....
I began to sob, heart-sick. I did love the absurd little man. My heart
ached, broken over my lies....
"Oh! Oh!" I sobbed, "Hildreth, my woman, my sweetheart--he trusted me,
Hildreth ... he trusted me!"
I knelt by the bed, thrusting my head into the lap of my First Woman.
She kissed me on top of the head.
"You're both two big, silly babies, that's all you are."
* * * * *
It was dawn when I returned to my tent, pulled the flap aside, fell,
exhausted, on my cot in dreamless sleep....
* * * * *
How was it all going to end?
It seemed to me that I had tapped violent, subterranean currents in life
and passion, that I had not hitherto known existed.
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