"Trash!" exclaimed Dick impatiently. There seemed something essentially immoral in her whole attitude, an odor of immorality exuding from everything she said. It exasperated him that he could not locate it and use it as the text for the lecture he felt she greatly needed. "Your good sense must tell you there's not the slightest danger of your losing me."
She laughed with raillery. "Oh, I know you're far too busy with your chemistry to wander. But that isn't what I meant. You understand." Her eyes shone upon him. "Sometimes—when we're holding each other tight and your lips are on mine—I can scarcely keep from crying. It seems to me we're like two held apart and trying to be one—and trying in vain. It's as if we touched only at the surface, and our bodies were keeping us from each other. But all that will soon end now, and we'll be really one. Closer and closer, day by day——"
She sat on his lap, and he clasped her in his arms. He felt ashamed somehow, and in awe of this emotion that was beyond him. "How wonderful a pure woman is!" he thought.
After a pause she sat up, went back to the hammock, seated herself, leaning toward him. "But I started to tell you my plans."
"What plans?" he asked, in high good humor with her again and overflowing with "lighter-hour" tenderness. "Tell me quick and we'll go in. It's getting late." He moved to seat himself beside her.
"No," she said, laughingly. "Sit where you are. I want you to listen. It isn't often I can get you to listen. As I said, I've got to have something worth while to fill in as I look after Winchie when he's not at kindergarten. I've been getting ready for a year, and it has given me occupation when he was sleeping or playing, for I taught him to amuse himself and not to look to me for everything. That was good for him and saved me. Well, I studied gardening and interior decoration."
"What a fuss you do make," said he, amused. "Why not just settle down and be a plain woman?"
"Shame on you! Tempting me to go to pieces."
"You'll not improve on the good old-fashioned woman, my dear."
"You deserve to be married to one of them."