Page:Fidelia, (IA fidelia00balm).pdf/125

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"MINE, MINE!"
113

face. Not Davey, she called him; never once did she call him Davey.

"Alice, I happened to be up. You'll believe that when I tell you. I happened to see her go by; I thought something was the matter. I followed her; then she went down to the lake."

"What for?"

"She wanted to see the sun rise."

"It was before sunrise!"

He admitted, "Yes."

Alice pushed back from him and stared at him now. "I saw the sun rise this morning! I was in bed. You were with her then!"

David had nothing to say.

"All the time I was getting up, and having breakfast, and riding to college, you were with her! Where?"

He replied, almost brusquely. "Down there, Alice. Down on the ice."

"But it was zero this morning; zero!"

He thought: Zero! Yes, it was; but he had not cared. Fidelia Netley had not felt it; nor he. Alice could not imagine that. It set Fidelia with him apart from every one else again; there they were together for their hour, in their world which they had discovered, not feeling the cold nor thinking of time.

He said none of this; but Alice, whom he held, became sensitive to it through his touch; for she shrank from him; and he cauht her tighter and cried:

"I didn't mean to do anything. I didn't mean to!" And he thought, as he clasped her, that he made her calm again.