Piers' arm was about her in a moment. He held her against his heart.
"What a charming child, what?" he murmured.
She hid her face on his shoulder. "I think myself she was in the right," she said, still half laughing. "Piers, you must go."
"In a moment. Let me hear from your own dear lips first that you are not—not angry?" He spoke the words softly into her ear. There was only tenderness in the holding of his arms.
"I am not," she whispered back.
"Nor sorry?" urged Piers.
She turned her face a little towards him. "No, dear, not a bit sorry; glad!"
He held her more closely but with reverence. "Avery, you don't—love me, do you?"
"Of course I do!" she said.
"There can't be any 'of course' about it," he declared almost fiercely. "I've been a positive brute to you. Avery—Avery, I'll never be a brute to you again."
And there he stopped, for her arms were suddenly about his neck, her lips raised in utter surrender to his.