"Dear," said Heyl. "Dearest." The lids drooped over
Fanny's eyes. "Look at me," said Heyl. So she tried to
lift them again, bravely, and could not. At that he bent
his head and kissed Fanny Brandeis in the way a woman wants
to be kissed for the first time by the man she loves. It
hurt her lips, that kiss, and her teeth, and the back of her
neck, and it left her breathless, and set things whirling.
When she opened her eyes (they shut them at such times) he
kissed her again, very tenderly, this time, and lightly, and
reassuringly. She returned that kiss, and, strangely
enough, it was the one that stayed in her memory long, long
after the other had faded.
"Oh, Clancy, I've made such a mess of it all. Such a
miserable mess. The little girl in the red tam was worth
ten of me. I don't see how you can--care for me."
"You're the most wonderful woman in the world," said Heyl,
"and the most beautiful and splendid."
He must have meant it, for he was looking down at her as he
said it, and we know that the skin had been peeled off her
nose by the mountain winds and sun, that her lips were
cracked and her cheeks rough, and that she was red-eyed and
worn-looking.
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