“Happy? I should have thought you’d have been bored out of your immortal soul, shut up all this time with only another girl and a sober-sided, boring, old fogey.”
“Stop that now, Inqoto,” she said quickly, dropping her other hand on to his, and there was a ring in her voice that his ear might or might not have caught. The air seemed charged with some sort of unwonted force.
“Well, what I was trying to screw up courage to say was this,” he went on. “If you have been so happy here why not continue to be so on the same terms, for the rest of our natural lives—that is if you can put up with the old fogey aforesaid ‘for better or for worse,’ as the rigmarole has it, probably the latter? What do you say, dear?”
A flush had come over her face, giving way to a momentary paleness, then it returned. The light in her eyes burned dear and soft. She looked wonderfully attractive.
“I say—‘Yes,’” she answered. “But oh, dearest, are you sure of yourself. You are weak and ill you know. Had we not better treat this as though it had not been until you are your own strong self again, and even then if you wish it?”
“No—we had not. Well? You said yes just now. Say it again.”
She did so. And she bent down and kissed him again, this time on the lips.
“I’ve never seen anyone like you before,” she whispered tenderly. “Never.”
“Gee-yupp! Strikes me I’ve looked in at the wrong time.”