His eyes that had been looking ardently into her face, shifted.
“I love you enough to be a fool about you. Does that please you?”
Her murmured answer was lost in the first kiss of love that had ever been pressed on her lips. She drew back from it, pale and thrilled, not abashed, but looking at her lover with eyes before which his drooped. It was a sacred moment to her.
“How wonderful,” she whispered, “that you should care for me.”
“It would have been more wonderful if I hadn’t.”
“And that you came now, when everything was so dark and lonely. You don’t know how horribly lonely I felt this evening, thinking of leaving here to-morrow and going among strangers.”
“But that’s all over now. You need never be lonely again. I’ll always be there to take care of you. We’ll always be together.”
“Don’t you think things often change when they get to their very worst? It seemed to me to-night that I was just about to open a door that led into the world, where nobody cared for me, or knew me, or wanted me.”
“One person wanted you, desperately.”
“And then, all in a moment, my whole life is changed. It’s not an hour ago that I was sitting here looking into the fire thinking how miserable I was, and now—”