"A. E. Merritt - Creep, Shadow!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

finest golden coins. Faintly archaic, touched with the antique beauty. I blinked again. I blurted:

"You're never--Helen!"

Her eyes sparkled, the impishness that my experience with the hornets had set indelibly in my memory
danced over her face. She took my hands, and swayed close to me; she sighed:

"The same, Alan! The same! And you--oh, let me look at you! Yes, still the hero of my girlhood! The
same keen, dark face--like--like--I used to call you Lancelot of the Lake, Alan--to myself of course.
The same lithe, tall, and slender body--I used to call you the Black Panther, too, Alan. And do you
remember how like a panther you leaped when the hornets stung you?" She bent her head, her rounded
shoulders shaking. I said: "You little devil! I always knew you did that deliberately."

She said, muffled:

"I'm not laughing, Alan. I'm sobbing."

She looked up at me, and her eyes were indeed wet, but I was sure not with any tears of regret. She
said:

"Alan, for long, long years I've waited to know something. Waited to hear you tell me something. Not to
tell me that you love me, darling--No, No! I always knew that you were going to do that, sooner or later.
This is something else!"

I was laughing, but I had a queer mixed feeling, too.

I said:

"I'll tell you anything. Even that I love you--and maybe mean it."

She said:

"Did you find those snakes in your bed? Or did they crawl out before you got in?"
I said again: "You little devil!"

She said:

"But were they there?"

"Yes, they were."

She sighed contentedly:

"Well, there's one complex gone forever. Now I know. You were so damned superior at times I just
couldn't help it."

She held her face up to me:

"Since you're going to love me, Alan, you might as well kiss me."