'Yes,' he said softly; 'you began it.'
'I had a reason for doing so.'
'I know you had.'
This remark made her laugh in a slightly embarrassed way.
'I wanted,' she then explained, 'to request you to take care of yourself—Theo.'
'I always do that,' he answered with some gravity; 'I am not the sort of person to expose myself to unnecessary danger.'
'I am not quite sure of that,' she said in her searching way. 'But, still, I should like to be able to tell Mrs. Wylie—later—that you promised to be careful. You see, her nerves will perhaps be a little shaken; she may be anxious.'
'I hope not,' he replied. 'It would never do for anyone to be anxious about me. It is a thing I have always tried to avoid, and Mrs. Wylie says that she never troubles about me. It would spoil my nerve, Brenda ... if I thought that there was somebody at home watching and waiting for news.'
She laughed suddenly in an almost defiant way, and the sound of her laughter was discordant in the silence only broken by a whispering breeze.
'And you would be nothing without nerve.'