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THE BLINDED HEART
43
Dazed, Lester turned in mute questioning. On the Strange Woman's face was a look infinitely sweet, and deep in the heart she had thought hardened to all the world there stirred the half-savage, wholly tender emotions of the eternal mother that always live, tho they may sleep, in the breasts of womenkind.
"She — why, she must be only a child ! ' ' she whispered.
"Yes, a child," he answered dully.
In a sudden blaze of fury the Strange Woman turned upon him.
"A child, who loves you like that, and you would leave her? Why, in all the world there can be no other so despicable, so mean, so lacking in all that goes to make a man. Go back, tho you crawl on bleeding knees across a thousand leagues of broken flints, and beg that you may kiss the hem of her garment and thereby be honored ! Go back, and, if she will forgive you, thank your God to your dying day that so unworthy a thing as you — so little a soul — are the object of such a love! Go!"
"You are right — I am going back — and beg forgiveness," he muttered, and, without a word of farewell, stumbled blindly away.
Florine stooped and picked up the glove which he had let fall from his hand. Convulsively, she pressed it to her lips.
"And I thought that, at last, to me had come a love which I might cherish," she murmured brokenly; then, with a disdainful laugh, tossed the glove from her. A little further along the platform, a gorgeously appareled drummer stood and eyed her with obvious appreciation. As he caught her glance, he strolled forward.
"Well, how do I size up to you, little one?" he challenged.
"Pretty good, all right, old kid/' Florine responded, in easy acceptance, and, with her carmined lips alone, smiled.
Swiftly Lester followed the roads and paths that led back to the cottage. Once only he paused and raised his hands in humble appeal
toward the arch of the star-studded sky.
"Oh, God, make me worthy of her love! I have been a fool, with blinded heart, but now I see and realize!" So he prayed, and then went on.
At last he came to the cottage and smelled the fragrance of the white roses in the little garden — and for the first time he realized how truly she was like a white rose — and, finally, treading softly and with tightening breast, to that chamber where a slen
"ROSE, MY WHITE KUtoE, I AM SORRY, DEAR," HE WHISPERED
der form knelt motionless, with tearwet face hidden upon his bed. And because he knew that, however unworthy, he was to her, because of her great love, placed upon a pedestal from which she would not wish to see him descend, he did not grovel, as did his soul, at her feet, but gently he sat beside her and raised her head.
"Rose, my white rose, I am sorry, dear," he whispered. "I have been blind, but now I see. At last I know the value of my treasure, my pearl beyond all price."