Understand?
want to feel that it isn't all selfishness--that there are other interests than mine in the game--that there's some one dependent on me, and that's thinking of me as I'm thinking of them--some one I can come home to at night and put my arm around--like this, and have her put her two arms around me--like--" He paused a second, and once again, as it had been in that moment of imminent peril, when he stood with his arm around her, their eyes met,--"put her two arms around me," prompted Annixter, half smiling, "like--like what, Hilma ?" "I don't know." "Like what, Hilma ?" he insisted.
"Like--like this ?" she questioned.

With a movement of infinite tenderness and affection she slid her arms around his neck, still crying a little.
The sensation of her warm body in his embrace, the feeling of her smooth, round arm, through the thinness of her sleeve, pressing against his cheek, thrilled Annixter with a delight such as he had never known.
He bent his head and kissed her upon the nape of her neck, where the delicate amber tint melted into the thick, sweet smelling mass of her dark brown hair.

She shivered a little, holding him closer, ashamed as yet to look up.

Without speech, they stood there for a long minute, holding each other close.

Then Hilma pulled away from him, mopping her tear-stained cheeks with the little moist ball of her handkerchief.
"What do you say?
Is it a go ?" demanded Annixter jovially.
"I thought I hated you all the time," she said, and the velvety huskiness of her voice never sounded so sweet to him.
"And I thought it was that crockery smashing goat of a lout of a cow-puncher." "Delaney?
The idea! Oh, dear! I think it must always have been you." "Since when, Hilma ?" he asked, putting his arm around her.