His eyes came back and clung to the velvety face of that slim
Cinderella in bits of transparent slippers and shimmering, star-edged
white, until even in spite of the gloom the girl recognized the change
which had come creeping over his face. She saw it surge up in his
eyes--the old undisguised wonder of the boy of ten years before, for
which, until that instant, she had looked in vain--but it was a man's
wonder of woman now, utter and absolute and all-enveloping. She caught
her breath then; she touched her lips with a dainty tongue as though
they had gone dry of a sudden. Involuntarily she stepped toward him,
that single pace which she had fallen away. And above the tumult of
her own senses she heard herself trying to laugh and realized how
unsteady the effort was.
"Then you do forgive me?" she breathed. "Do I--pass inspection? Do
you like me--in my masquerade?"
Steve answered her last question first and, lips parted, she listened,
conscious of nothing save the words he was speaking.
"There was never need of a fairy-godmother for you," he told her, his
voice grave. "There was never need of a transforming miracle; you have
been that, always, yourself. And you are not permitted to ask
forgiveness from me, nor pardon. Men do not admit that there can be
need of that, where they have worshiped, as long as I have worshiped
you.
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