"Good to you!" he exclaimed, crushing her to him.
"Oh, those dreadful days since we quarrelled!"
"Why did you do it, darling, since you suffered as well as I?"
"I can't tell—there's something in me like that, I don't know what it is—but we'll quarrel again after this, I suppose."
"Then we deserve to be punished and I hope we shall be."
"How will that help? It's just life and we can't make it different." She drew gently away from him, while a clairvoyance wiser than her years saddened her features. "I wonder if love ever lasts?" she whispered half to herself.
But there was no room in his more practical mind for the question. "Ours will, sweetheart—how can you doubt it? Haven't I loved you for the last ten years, not counting the odd days?"
"And in all those years you kissed me once, while in the last five minutes you've kissed me—how many times? You are wasteful, Abel."
"And you're a dreadful little witch—not a woman."
"I suppose I am, and a nice girl wouldn't talk like this. I'm not the wife you're wanting, Abel."