They were very quiet for some time after that storm of kisses had spent itself. Morris leaned back languidly in a smooth hollow of the rocks. Belinda leaned against him. Her head was on his breast, her arm clinging close about him under his coat. The buckle of his waistcoat cut into her arm, but she loved the bite of the little piece of metal that was warm with his body. It amused and thrilled her both, to feel the everyday intimacy of his clothing in this sharp pressure of the buckle that nipped her soft forearm. And she loved the feeling of his strong, lean waist breathing in the living girdle of her arm. She lay in a daze of happiness, not thinking of the past or future, or even of the present clearly. She was being fully—she had no need of thought.
Morris's voice roused her with a start.
"See here, Linda," he was saying. "This is all very fine— I'd be an ungrateful beggar to complain if we'd only the present to consider. But we've jolly well got to consider a good deal else."
"Oh, it'll all come straight of itself, Morry," she murmured drowsily. "Don't bother ... not now at any rate...."
"'Now' is just what's got to be bothered about, you reckless witch.... We'll have the house about our ears if we go on like this...."
"I don't care what comes about my ears.... Your heart's under my ear now—that's all I care about...."
"Linda! You really are a reckless devilkin, aren't you?"
"Well ... isn't it nice to have me reckless about you?"
Loring gave his short laugh.
"Oh, it's 'nice' enough, I grant you. But nice things have a rather cussed way of ending nastily, my dear."