“What has it got down to now?” John asked again, a few mornings after Narcisse’s last visit. Mary told him. He stepped a little way aside, averting his face, dropped his forehead into his hand, and returned.
“I don’t see—I don’t see, Mary—I”—
“Darling,” she replied, reaching and capturing both his hands, “who does see? The rich think they see; but do they, John? Now, do they?”
The frown did not go quite off his face, but he took her head between his hands and kissed her temple.
“You’re always trying to lift me,” he said.
“Don’t you lift me?” she replied, looking up between his hands and smiling.
“Do I?”
“You know you do. Don’t you remember the day we took that walk, and you said that after all it never is we who provide?” She looked at the button of his coat, which she twirled in her fingers. “That word lifted me.”
“But suppose I can’t practice the trust I preach?” he said.