Innocent | Page 4

me! Not as kind as you are to that bird."
"Oh, poor Cupid! You're jealous of him!"
He moved a little nearer to her.
"Perhaps I am!" And he spoke in a lower tone. "Perhaps I am, Innocent!
I grudge him the privilege of lying there on your dear little white breast!
I am envious when you kiss him! I want you to kiss ME!"
His voice was tremulous,--he turned up his face audaciously.
She looked at him with a smile.
"I will if you like!" she said. "I should think no more of kissing you
than of kissing Cupid!"
He drew back with a gesture of annoyance.
"I wouldn't be kissed at all that way," he said, hotly.
"Why not?"
"Because it's not the right way. A bird is not a man!"
She laughed merrily.

"Nor a man a bird, though he may have a bird's name!" she said. "Oh,
Robin, how clever you are!"
He leaned closer.
"Let Cupid go!" he pleaded,--"I want to ride home on the last load with
you alone."
Another little peal of laughter escaped her.
"I declare you think Cupid an actual person!" she said. "If he'll go, he
shall. But I think he'll stay."
She loosened her hold of the dove, which, released, gravely hopped up
to her shoulder and sat there pruning its wing. She glanced round at it.
"I told you so!" she said,--"He's a fixture."
"I don't mind him so much up there," said Robin, and he ventured to
take one of her hands in his own,--"but he always has so much of you;
he nestles under your chin and is caressed by your sweet lips,--he has
all, and I have,--nothing!"
"You have one hand," said Innocent, with demure gravity.
"But no heart with it!" he said, wistfully. "Innocent, can you never love
me?"
She was silent, looking at him critically,--then she gave a little sigh.
"I'm afraid not! But I have often thought about it."
"You have?"--and his eyes grew very tender.
"Oh yes, often! You see, it isn't your fault at all. You are-- well!"--here
she surveyed him with a whimsical air of admiration, --"you are quite a
beautiful man! You have a splendid figure and a good face, and kind
eyes and well-shaped feet and hands,--and I like the look of you just
now with that open collar and that gleam of sunlight in your curly

hair--and your throat is almost white, except for a touch of sunburn,
which is RATHER becoming!-- especially with that crimson silk tie! I
suppose you put that tie on for effect, didn't you?"
He flushed, and laughed lightly.
"Naturally! To please YOU!"
"Really? How thoughtful of you! Well, you are charming,--and I
shouldn't mind kissing you at all. But it wouldn't be for love."
"Wouldn't it? What would it be for, then?"
Her face lightened up with the illumination of an inward mirth and
mischief.
"Only because you look pretty!" she answered.
He threw aside her hand with an angry gesture of impatience.
"You want to make a fool of me!" he said, petulantly.
"I'm sure I don't! You are just lovely, and I tell you so. That is not
making a fool of you!"
"Yes, it is! A man is never lovely. A woman may be."
"Well, I'm not," said Innocent, placidly. "That's why I admire the
loveliness of others."
"You are lovely to me," he declared, passionately.
She smiled. There was a touch of compassion in the smile.
"Poor Robin!" she said.
At that moment the hidden goddess in her soul arose and asserted her
claim to beauty. A rare indefinable charm of exquisite tenderness and
fascination seemed to environ her small and delicate personality with

an atmosphere of resistless attraction. The man beside her felt it, and
his heart beat quickly with a thrilling hope of conquest.
"So you pity me!" he said,--"Pity is akin to love."
"But kinsfolk seldom agree," she replied. "I only pity you because you
are foolish. No one but a very foolish fellow would think ME lovely."
He raised himself a little and peered over the edge of the hay- load to
see if there was any sign of the men returning with Roger, but there was
no one in the field now except the venerable personage he called Uncle
Hugo, who was still smoking away his thoughts, as it were, in a dream
of tobacco. And he once more caught the hand he had just let go and
covered it with kisses.
"There!" he said, lifting his head and showing an eager face lit by
amorous eyes. "Now you know how lovely you are to me! I should like
to kiss your mouth like that,--for you have the sweetest mouth in the
world! And you have the prettiest hair,--not raw gold which I hate,--but