The Palace of Darkened Windows Part 46

She looked up at him. Unguardedly he looked down at her. No one but a blind girl or a goose could have mistaken that look upon Billy B.

Hill's young face, the frustrate longing of it, the deep desire. The heart beneath the sky-blue cloak cast off a most monstrous acc.u.mulation of doubts and fears and began suddenly to beat like mad.

Totally unexpectedly, startlingly amazing, she flung out at him, "Then what made you stop?"

"Stop?" he echoed. "Stop? I've never stopped! There hasn't been a moment----"

"There have been three days. Three--horrible--days!"

"Arlee!"

"Do you think I _like_ being snubbed and ignored and--and--obliterated?" she brought indignantly out. "Do you think I call that--being friends?"

"I--I wanted to leave you free--not to force your friendship----" he stammered wildly.

"You couldn't force _mine_," said Arlee Beecher.

"But--but there was Falconer," he protested. "You had to be free to--to have a choice----"

"A choice? Do you call that a _choice_?"

"I thought you were making it. That first night----"

"I stayed up to dance with _you_," she cried hotly. "You never came back!"

"But the next day----"

"I _wanted_ to go. But I couldn't keep up any more. I _had_ to rest.... And you went with Lady Claire!"

"Why, I had to! We'd planned. But when we came back, he was on deck with you----"

"Yes, and I was waiting up--to see _you_. And you only took two dances that night----"

"You didn't seem to want me to----"

"I never guessed you wanted them! _I_ had my pride, too. I wasn't going to be in the way--because you'd rescued me. I thought you didn't want me in the way!"

"Arlee--my girl--my precious girl----"

"No, I'm not. I'm not."

"Yes, you are," he said fiercely. "I don't care if you are engaged to Falconer or not, I'm going to tell you so."

"I'm not engaged to Falconer," she protested.

He blurted in bewilderment. "Then what in the world were you doing up there on that pylon?"

Her elfish laughter disconcerted him. "Do you think one has to get engaged if she stays on a pylon?... We were getting _not_ engaged."

"I thought--I thought you liked him," he said bewilderedly.

"I did. I do, I mean--but not that way. He--he--Oh, I really _like_ him," she cried tremulously, "but not--we've had it all out and everything's all over. I'm sorry--sorry--but he'll be really glad bye and bye. For my story shocked him terribly.... And then there's Lady Claire. He didn't like to have her down with you even when he was up with me." She laughed softly. "Oh, I shouldn't have let him be so friendly here but I did like him and you--you were so--so hateful."

The moon and stars whirled giddily around him as he put his arms about her. Like a man in a dream he drew her to him.

"I love you--love you," he said huskily over the bright maze of hair.

"You don't!" came with m.u.f.fled intensity from the hidden lips. "You said to that man--when I was in that cave--'Nothing doing!'"

"It wasn't his affair--I hadn't a hope.... Oh, my dear, my dear, I've been breaking my heart----"

"And I've had such a perfectly h-hateful three days," sobbed the voice.

His arms closed tighter about her, incredible of their happiness.

"Oh, Arlee, I can't tell you--I haven't words----"

"I've had _deeds_!" she whispered.

Through his rocking mind darted a memory of her earlier speech to him. "You said you didn't want words. Arlee--_will you_?"

She flung back her head and looked up at him, her face a flower, her eyes like stars tangled in the bright mist of her hair.

"Billy, what's your middle name?"

"Bunker.... I can't help it, dear. They wished it on me and asked me not to let it go. But _Bunker Hill_----!"

"It's a wonderful name, Billy! A perfectly irresistible name!" Her eyes laughed up at him through a dazzle of tears, and prankishly over her curving lips hovered a mischievous dimple. "It's a name--that--I--simply--can't--do--without--Billy Bunker Hill!"

The dimple deepened then fled before its just deserts. For if ever a dimple deserved to be caught and kissed that was the one.