“I’m glad.”
Her young face was white and solemn in the moonlight, but her eyes came up to his with a splendid courage. “I’m glad,” she repeated.
It might have been a moment, an hour, a day, an æon, the two looked at each other. Then their hands went out to each other, for very need of human touch in the great awe of it.
When he spoke both were trembling.
“Will you wait?” he asked her. “It may be long.” But the note in his voice was new. The fight even then was begun.
“Yes,” she told him, grave eyes meeting grave eyes, for young love is solemn. Then he drew her to him and sight and sound went out, and the solid round earth was spurned. And yet they were but two of the long, unending line, mounting thus to God and His heaven, for it is for this we are come into the world.
Suddenly Alexina slipped her hands from his and fled.
Molly was on the porch with Mr. Jonas. A toy harness from the cotillion favors jangled on her dress. She had sunk laughing on a bench to get breath.
“Yes,” she told Mr. Jonas, “we go in the morning, to Cannes Brulée.”
Alexina was coming up on the porch and to Molly. Straight she slipped to her knees and her arms went around her mother.