But her spirit chafed
beneath delay, and dark passions lurked behind and brooded in her eyes.
Perhaps it was this that held him in a sort of uncertainty. It was as if
he waited permission from some unseen source to take what she was so
evidently ready to give. He thought it was the sacredness in which he
held her. Almost the sermon and the feeling of the Presence were out of
mind as he went home. There played around him now a little phantom joy
that hovered over like a will-o'-the-wisp above his heart, and danced,
giving him a strange, inexplicable exhilaration. Was this love? Was he
in love?
He flung himself down on Tennelly's couch when he got back to the
dormitory. Bill Ward was deep in a book under the drop-light, and
Tennelly was supposed to be finishing a theme for the next day.
"Nelly, what is love?" asked Courtland, suddenly, in the midst of the
silence. "How do you know when you are in love?"
Tennelly dropped his fountain-pen in his surprise, and had to crawl
under the table after it. He and Bill Ward exchanged one lightning
glance of relief as he emerged from the table.
"Search me!" said Tennelly, as he sat down again. "Love's an illusion,
they say. I never tried it, so I don't know."
There was silence again in Tennelly's room. Presently Courtland got up
and said good-night. Over in his own room he stood by the window,
looking out into the moonlight. The preacher had said prayer was talking
with the Lord face to face.
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