Jinnie's arms went about him, but her tongue refused to speak.

"Kiss me again!" Theodore insisted.

Oh, how she wanted to kiss him once more! How she gloried in the strong arms, and the handsome face strung tense with his love for her!

Then their lips met in the wonders of a second kiss. Jinnie had thought the first one could never be equaled, but as she lay limply in his arms, his lips upon hers, she lost count of everything.

It might have been the weird effect of the shadows, or the deep, sudden silence about them that drew the girl slowly from his arms.

"I want my fiddle," she whispered. "Let me go!"

Faint were the inflections of the words; insistent the drawing back of the dear warm body.

Theodore permitted her to get up, and with staggering step she took her position at the tree trunk.

Then he sank down, hot blood coursing through his veins. Long ago he had realized in Jinnie and the fiddle essentials--essentials to his future and his happiness, and to-day her kisses and divine, womanly yielding had only strengthened that realization. Nothing now was of any importance to him save this vibrant, temperamental girl. There was something so delightfully young--so pricelessly dear in the way she had surrendered herself to him. The outside world faded from his memory as Jinnie closed her eyes, and with a very white face began to play. For that day she had finished with the song of the fairies, the babbling of the brook, and the nodding rhythm of the flowers in the summer's breeze. All that she considered now was Theodore and his kisses. The bow came down over a string with one long, vibrating, pa.s.sionate call. It expressed the awakening of the girl's soul--awakened by the touch of a man's turbulent lips--Jinnie's G.o.d-given man. Her fiddle knew it--felt it--expressed it!

With that first seductive kiss the soul-stirring melody was full born within her, as a world is called into the firmament by one spoken word of G.o.d. And as she played, Theodore moved silently toward her, for the fiddle was flashing out the fervor of the kisses she had given him.

He was close at her feet before he spoke, and simultaneously the white lids opened in one blue, blue glance.

"Jinnie!" breathed Theodore, getting up and holding out his arms.

"Come to me! Come to me, my love! I can't live another moment without you."

The bow and fiddle remained unnoticed for the next half hour, while the two, the new woman and the new man, were but conscious of one another, nothing else.

At length Theodore spoke.

"Jinnie, look up and say, 'Theodore, I love you'."

It was hard at first, because her mind had never reached the point of speaking aloud her pa.s.sionate love for him, but Theodore heard the halting words, and droned them over to himself, as a music lover delights in his favorite strains.

"And you love me well enough to marry me some day?" he murmured.

Marry him! This, too, was a new thought. Jinnie's heart fluttered like a bird in her breast. To be with him always? To have him for her own?

Of course, he was hers, and she was his! Then into her mind came the thought of Lafe, Peggy, and Bobbie, and the arms around him relaxed.

"I love you better'n anybody in the world," she told him, pathetically, "but I can't ever leave the cobbler.... They need me there."

"They can't keep you," he cried pa.s.sionately. "I want you myself."

His vehemence subdued her utterly. She glanced into his face. In his flashing eyes, Jinnie read a power inimitable and unsurpa.s.sed.

"I couldn't ever leave 'em," she repeated, quivering, "but couldn't they live----"

"We'd take the little blind boy," promised Theodore.

Jinnie remained pensive. To bring the shine in her eyes once more, he said:

"Wouldn't you like Bobbie to live with us?"

"Yes, of course; but I couldn't leave Lafe and Peg in Paradise Road."

Theodore surrounded the entreating, uplifted face with two strong hands.

"I know that. We'll take care of them all----"

Still Jinnie held back her full surrender.

"Can I take Happy Pete, too? And the cats? There's an awful lot of 'em.... Milly Ann does have so many kitties," she ended navely.

Theodore laughed delightedly.

"Dearest little heart! Of course we'll take them all, every one you love!"

"Will you tell Lafe about--about us?" Jinnie asked shyly, "I--I----"

but she had no more time to finish.

"I'll tell him to-morrow, Jinnie!" exclaimed Theodore. "Are you happy, dearest?"

"So happy," she sighed, with loving a.s.surance.

The rest of the day they were like two frolicking children, eating their luncheon under the tall trees. When the shadows fell, they left their trysting place, and with their arms about each other, went slowly back to the automobile.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

WHAT THEODORE TOLD HIS FRIEND

"He's been gone all day," mourned Molly miserably to Jordan Morse.

They had finished dinner; Molly had put Mrs. King to bed, and the two were seated in chairs on the lawn. Every minute that pa.s.sed and found Theodore still away was like an eternity to the woman. She had always hated the office hours which took him from the house, hated the business friends who dropped in now and then and changed the conversation from the delicate personal things she always managed to dwell upon.

During the years she had been companion to Mrs. King, Theo's dinner and luncheon hours were ones of joy to her. Now this day had pa.s.sed without him.

"He'll show up before long," Morse said presently. "What a lot of worry you have over that man!... Now if you had a problem on your hands like mine----"

The soft chug of a motor cut off his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"He's coming, now," he said, getting up.

Molly responded coldly to Theodore's friendly salute from the car.

As Mr. King walked quickly toward them, Morse called laughingly,

"We had just decided you'd been kidnapped."

"Nothing like that," answered Theodore, "I've been in the country....