The Heart Line: A Drama of San FranciscoBurgess, Gelett
General
The Heart Line: A Drama of San Francisco
Burgess, Gelett
Bohemianism -- Fiction; Fortune-tellers -- Fiction; San Francisco (Calif.) -- Fiction
But into this relation they entered, as children go to play, making
their own rules of the game, establishing their own sentimental
traditions as lovers use. With such vivid imagination as both possessed
the pastime became deliciously intricate; it had pathos and comedy, wind
and dew and fire. They spoke in enigmas, one’s quick intuition
answering the other—there were flashes so quick with humor that a smile
was inadequate in satisfying its esoteric message. An observer would
have seen Clytie, her eyes alight, her pose informed with gracile
eagerness, waking from her gentle languor to inspired gesture—Granthope
pacing the room, erect, virile, dark, sensitive in every fiber to her
presence, flinging a whimsical word at her, or with a burst of abandon
pouring himself out to her to her delight. There was an intellectual
stimulation as well as an emotional pressure in their intercourse that
forbade any monotony of mood. There was a tensity of feeling that
broke, at times, into waves of laughter; but there were moments, too,
when the sudden realization of their relation, with all its doubts, its
unknown paths, and secret, fatal web of circumstance, impelled them to
make sure, at least, of the moment, and to defy the future with an
expression of their present happiness. So they came down, and so they
went up. From height to depth, from shadow to light he pursued her. He
chased, but she was ready enough to be caught! She held a hand to him
and helped him up; they met in delightful solitudes of thought; they
walked together through the obvious. That he should so follow her, that
she could understand, there was wonder enough, even without that other
diviner communion. It was a lovers’ play-day, now; there was time
enough for the lovers’ ritual and the worship at the shrine. For this
day was the untellable, impossible delights of wonder. They took
repossession of their kingdom, no longer jeoparded by doubt.
It was Clytie, who, at last, grew more bold, more definite. She rose
and put her two hands on Granthope’s shoulders, smiling at him with
pride in her possession.
"I can’t wait any longer," she exclaimed. "I’ve suffered enough.
Before anything else comes between us, let’s settle it so that nothing
can separate us. You see, my instinct has triumphed after all. I’m
sure of you—indeed, I always have been. I must speak to father
to-morrow, and, if you like—" She hesitated, in a sudden, maidenly
access of timidity.
"We’ll be married—instantly? Dare you?" He crushed her impetuously in
his arms, not even this time without a wonder that she should permit
him, not quite daring even yet to believe that she was more than
willing.
She freed herself with an expression that should have reassured him.
"There’s nothing, now, to be gained by waiting, is there?"
"Nothing, if you can live on what I can provide."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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