"I've been thinking the war has done something to you, Harry. And now I'm sure of it. You've been learning to think of somebody beside yourself."
"I'd be pretty rotten if I hadn't learned to do some thinking about you," he said, as he looked into her eyes with more hardihood than wisdom.
She met his gaze for the fraction of a minute and then raised her chin and laughed merrily up at the broad back of the cocher.
"Yes, you've changed, Harry dear. God knows how or why—but you've changed. You'll be paying me some compliments upon my pulchritude and heavenly virtues by and by."
"Why shouldn't I?" he insisted soberly when her laughter subsided. "Your loveliness is only the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace. I'm so sure of it that I don't care whether you laugh or not."
"Am I lovely? You think so? Well—it's nice to hear even if it only makes conversation. Also that my nose is not so bad, even if it does turn piously to Heaven—but there's a deep dent in my chin which means that I've got a bit of the devil in me—bad cess to him—so that you'd better do just what I want you to—or we'll have a falling out. And that would be a pity—because of the goose."
He laughed as gayly as she had done.
"I've a notion, Moira," he said, "that it's my goose you're going to cook."
"And I've a notion," she said poising a slim gloved finger for a second upon his knee, "I've a notion that we're both going to cook him."
It seemed too much like a prophecy to be quite to his liking. Her moods were Protean and her rapid transitions bewildered. And yet, under them all, he realized how sane she was, how honest with him and with herself and how free from any guile. She trusted him entirely as one good friend would trust another and the thought of any evil coming to her through his strange venture into Harry's shoes made him most unhappy. But her pretty dream of a husband with whom she could at least be on terms of friendship must some day come to an end ... And yet ... suppose the report that Harry was missing meant that he was dead. A bit of shrapnel—a bullet—he didn't wish it—but that chance was within the range of the possible.