“Splendid!” She put out her hand, and the two shook hands vigorously again, like the pair of comrades they were.
“Juliet,” said her husband, watching her face closely. “It’s been a happy five years, hasn’t it?”
“A happy five years, Tony.”
“Do you mean it?” He smiled at her. “You’ve never been sorry?” Then he got to his feet and held out his hand again to help her up. “The mortal combat we engaged in gave you a magnificent colour,” he commented, and passed affectionate fingers across the smooth cheek near his shoulder. “Sweetheart——” he drew her into his arms—“I may fence with you once in a while with sharp words for weapons, but—do you know how I love you?”
“I wonder why?”
“It’s strange, isn’t it?—after all these years. To be really up-to-date, we should long since have become interested each in some other——”
A hand came gently but effectually upon his mouth. He kissed the hand. “No, I won’t say it. It’s a cynical philosophy, and I’ll not take its language on my lips—not with my wife in my arms, giving the lie to that sort of thing. Julie, we’re not sentimentalists because we still care——”
“Who thinks we are?”
“Plenty of envious skeptics, I’ll wager. I see it in their green-eyed glances. They can’t believe it’s genuine. Dear—is it genuine? Look up, and tell me.”
She looked up, and seeing his heart in his eyes, met his deep caress with a tenderness which told him more than she could have put into the words she suddenly found it impossible to speak.