A butterfly, marked gorgeously in blue and orange, alighted on the bar
by her hand, and when it fluttered off again, drunken with summer, her
gaze followed it into the meadow, where the music of innumerable bees
filled the sunshine.
"And you, Abel?" she asked, turning presently, "what of yourself?"
He smiled at her before answering; and with the smile, she felt again
the old physical joy in his presence--in his splendid animal vitality,
in the red-brown colour of his flesh, in the glow of his dark eyes,
which smiled down into hers. No other man had ever made this appeal to
her senses. She had struggled sometimes like a bird in a net against the
memory of it, yet it had held her, in spite of her will, even when she
was farthest away from him. The gentleness from which Judy revolted,
brought Molly's heart back to him with a longing to comfort.
"Well, I'm learning," he answered, still smiling.
"And you are happy?"
He made a gesture of assent, while he looked over her head at the
butterfly--which had found its mate and was soaring heavenward in a
flight of ecstasy. The same loyalty which had prevented his touching her
hand when they met, rebelled now against an implied reflection on Judy.
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