"In my case, that would not be true," he answered. "My trouble is that I dare not say one half of what I feel."
She looked across the table at him, and Nigel suddenly felt a great weight of depression lifted from his heart. He forgot all about his country's peril. Life and its possibilities seemed somehow all different. He was carried away by a rare wave of emotion.
"Naida!" he whispered.
"Yes?"
Her eyes were soft and expectant. Something of the gravity had gone from her face. She was like a girl, suddenly young with new thoughts.
"You know what I am going to say to you?"
"Do not say it yet, please," she begged. "Somehow it seems to me that the time has not come, though the thought of what may be in your heart is wonderful. I want to dream about it first," she went on. "I want to think."
He laughed, a strange sound almost to his own ears, for Nigel, since his uncle's death, had tasted the very depths of depression.
"I obey," he agreed. "It is well to dally with the great things. Meanwhile, they grow."
She smiled across at him.