A sound behind him made him catch his breath. He was trembling as he turned about and saw Lydia coming swiftly up the driveway. “Good Heavens, how I love her!” he thought as he ran down to meet her.
He was trembling when he took her in his arms, folding her in that close embrace of surprised rapture at finding everything real, and no dream, which is the unique joy of betrothal. He would not let her speak for a moment, pressing his lips upon hers. When he released her, she cried in a whisper, “Oh, it’s wonderful how when you’re close to me everything else just isn’t in the world!”
“That’s being in love, Lydia,” Paul told her with a grave thankfulness.
“I don’t mean,” she went on, with her ever-present effort to express honestly her meaning, “I don’t mean just—just being really close—having your arms around me, though that always makes me forget things, too—but being—feeling close, you know—inside. Not having any inner corner where we’re not together—the way we are now—the way I knew we should be when I saw you running down to meet me. I always know the minute I see you whether it’s going to be this way.” She added, a little wistfully, “Sometimes, you know, it isn’t.”
Paul lifted her up to the porch and led her across into the hallway. Here he took her in his arms again and said with a shaken accent: “Dearest Lydia, dearest! I wish it were always the way you want it—”
Lydia dropped her head back on his shoulder and looked at him earnestly. In the half-light, white and clear from the freshly plastered walls, her face was like alabaster. “Dear Paul, isn’t that what getting married means—to learn how to be really, really close to each other all the time. There isn’t anything else worth getting married for, is there? Is there?”
Her lover looked down into her eyes, into her sweet, earnest face, and could not speak. Finally, his hand at his throat, “Oh, Lydia, you’re too good for me!” he said huskily. “You’re too good for any man!”
“No, no, no!” she protested with a soft energy. “I’m weak, as weak as water. You must give me a lot of your strength or I’ll go under.”
“God knows I’ll give you anything I have.”
“Then, never let things come between us—never, never, never! I’m all right as long as I’m close to you. If we just keep that, nothing else can matter.”