“What!” Randolph cried with another semblance of jealousy.
“No, because it lay in his manner; that gentle, affectionate, yet manly manner—indescribable! perfectly indescribable!”
“It's the same to everybody,” said Randolph, “and everybody loves him. I never knew another such fellow. It's past belief the way he wins people. And he says nothing, too.”
“Ah, but he does!” repeated Constance. “Well, well, there's no telling it all. I continually think of the word delightful in recurring to it and him. I assured him that he would be a member of our family, and that our fireside and our crust—I really didn't dare to promise more than a crust, you know, Randolph—would be his as well as ours. When he left he said good-by in the same perfectly easy, natural way, calling me Constance——”
“What?” Randolph exclaimed.
“And then he said, 'I am a brother now, you know,' and he bent and kissed me.”
“The dickens!” cried Randolph.
And Constance finished the sentence.
“He did. And really in the most delightful way,” she added naïvely.
Shortly after this cementing of new bonds there was a quiet wedding ceremony one morning at the little suburban church, and when this was over Randolph and Constance were ready for their walk through life.