As she looked at him, her lips curled corner-wise, her foot slipped on the sheer edge of the turf. She swayed toward him and he caught her, feeling for a sharp instant the adorable nearness of her body. It ridged all his skin with a creeping delight. She recovered her footing with an exclamation, and turned back somewhat abruptly to the porch where she seated herself on the step, drawing her filmy skirt aside to make a place for him. There was a moment of silence which he broke.
“That exquisite serenade you were playing! You know the words, of course.”
“They are more lovely, if possible, than the score. Do you care for poetry?”
“I’ve always loved it,” he said. “I’ve been reading some lately—a little old-fashioned book I found at Damory Court. It’s Lucile. Do you know it?”
“Yes. It’s my mother’s favorite.”
He drew it from his pocket. “See, I’ve got it here. It’s marked, too.”
He opened it, to close it instantly—not, however, before she had put out her hand and laid it, palm down, on the page. “That rose! Oh, let me have it!”
“Never!” he protested. “Look here. When I put it between the leaves, I did so at random. I didn’t see till now that I had opened it at a marked passage.”
“Let us read it,” she said.
He leaned and held the leaf to the light from the doorway and the two heads bent together over the text.