“Never.”
“Why not?”
“Because of our love—our complete and perfect love.”
“Yes. Now we have had our first misunderstanding, but not in the ordinary and derogatory sense in which the word is used—and it has only served to cement us more closely together. Hasn’t it?”
“It has.”
“Then we will sit down again and talk things over quietly,” he said. “You have been standing long enough, after your long, hot ride.”
He released her beautiful form from his embrace, though reluctantly, and only then after another clinging kiss. She subsided again on to her cushions.
“After my long, hot ride!” she echoed. “Why, it was nothing. I’m as strong as a horse.”
“You are perfect.”
“Oh, and all this time you have not even lighted your pipe!” she cried, gleefully, and radiant with smiles as she picked up that homely and comforting implement where he had let it fall. “Now light it up, dearest, and then we will be comfy, and talk.”