Page:Cup of Gold-1929.djvu/102

Another and another and another; then his arms fell away from her and his hands clenched. The girl cried fearfully,

“Oh! do you love Paulette?” for Henry had grown morose and strange and cold.

“I shall tell you of an old time,” he said hoarsely. “I was a little boy, a joyous little boy, yet old enough to love. There was a girl———and she was named Elizabeth———the daughter of a wealthy squire. Ah! she was lovely as this night about us, quiet and lovely as that slender palm tree under the moon. I loved her with that love a man may exercise but once. Even our hearts seemed to go hand in hand. How I remember the brave plans we told—she and I, there, sitting on a hillside in the night. We were to live in a great house and have dear children growing up about us. You can never know such love, Paulette.

“Ah, well! It could not last. The gods slay happiness in jealousy. Nothing good can last. A gang of bastard sailors roved through the land and carried me off———a little boy to be sold for a slave in the Indies. It was a bitter thing to lose Elizabeth———a bitter thing the years cannot forget.” And he was weeping softly by her side.

Paulette was bewildered by the change in him. She stroked his hair and his eyes, until his breath came more calmly. Then she began again, with almost hopeless patience, like a teacher questioning a dull child.

“But———do you love Paulette?”

He leaped up and glared at her.